time to sleep, okay? We’ll talk in the morning.” I kissed her head again. “Goodnight, mon chou.”
“Good night, Papa.”
My shoulders slumped as she let me off the hook. I left Dauphine’s room and walked straight to the stairwell and went to my stateroom, ripping off my clothes. There was no fucking way I was going to have a tawdry affair with the nanny and sneak around on my own damn boat and try to hide it from my own damn daughter and everyone who worked for me.
I was not my father.
I didn’t screw the help.
I flicked off my light and lay under the sheet. Immediately sensations and images assaulted me. I was harder and longer than a circus tentpole. Sleep was impossible.
I finished my morning workout, feeling tired, troubled, and out of sorts. The boat felt … empty. Or maybe that was me. A ping on my phone told me Evan had taken the Mercedes out of our parking bay in St. Tropez. He would be running some errands and picking up some stuff for me at my office in Sofia Antipolis and meeting us at my mother’s later. But Evan often left the boat, and it didn’t leave the place feeling like something was missing. My gut felt troubled.
Andrea sat at the table in the galley with a cup and saucer and didn’t say anything when I walked in. It was her day off, so I could hardly complain. But it was totally out of character.
“Good morning,” I tried, anyway.
She stood and took her coffee to the sink and poured it away. “Is it?” she asked cryptically, and then disappeared down the staff stairwell, passing Chef who was on his way up.
I frowned and made myself an espresso and asked Chef to make me an egg white omelet.
He grunted. “No problem, Monsieur,” he said in a tone that made me wonder if he would spit in it.
“Great. I’ll take it on the top deck in fifteen minutes. Everyone all right this morning?” I asked.
“Oui,” Chef responded in a decidedly “no,” tone.
“Okay, then,” I muttered sarcastically. “I’ll just go get cleaned up.”
I’d just gotten out of the shower when Dauphine came slamming into the room.
“Excuse me,” I grumbled. “I’m getting dressed.”
Her face was thunderous, and she stamped her foot. “I don’t care!” she screamed. “Why did you let her leave?” Her face collapsed into a loud sob and she ran forward to bury her face against my stomach.
“What are you talking about?” I hugged her to me with one hand as I held up my towel with the other.
“It’s all your fault!” She pushed off me and began pummeling my stomach. “Ow,” she complained. “Your stomach is too hard.”
I laughed. “I’m tensing so you don’t hurt me.”
“Stop laughing. It’s not funny. I knew you didn’t like her. I knew it. Why, Papa? Why?”
“Christ.” I let out a long exhale and tightened my towel firmly around my waist and then padded into the bedroom. I pointed at the couch. “Sit.”
My daughter stomped over and sat.
“What are you talking about?”
“Josie has gone away.”
My stomach dropped to my toes, and my heart felt like ten tons of concrete. “She … left?”
That’s when I noticed a folded letter crumpled in Dauphine’s small fist. She smacked it on my leg. “It’s in English. Read it to me.”
“Dauphine! Do not speak to me like that,” I warned and took the letter.
Instead of her normal chagrin when she knew she’d pushed me too far, I got a look of pure sparks. I sighed and looked at it. Monsieur Pascale was written in delicate cursive. She even had beautiful handwriting. “This is to me. So I think I should read it.”
“Andrea and Evan both already read it so it’s not private.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, they did, did they?” I was going to have words with both of them. “Well, you are not reading it. It is addressed to me. Not you. Did she not say goodbye to you?”
“She did.” Dauphine nodded dumbly, her tears still streaking hot and fast down her cheeks, her small chin wobbling.
I hugged her closer with one arm.
“I knew you did not like her,” Dauphine warbled. “You were mean to her sometimes. You are not mean, Papa. Why were you mean to Josie?”
“I liked her just fine. And I wasn’t—” I broke off. “Maybe I was gruff sometimes.”
Dauphine dissolved into tears again.
Fuck me. My heart was twisting in my chest at the thought of Josie leaving and at seeing my daughter so distraught.