Just One Kiss, Please Daddy

Chapter 8

Ford’s POV

I thought it was going to be an adorable calm call from my daughter telling me to pick her up. But the last thing I expected was the panic in her voice.

“Dad! Dad, help!”

“Hey, hey, I’m here,” I say, trying hard not to panic as well. “What’s going on? Calm down and tell me, okay?”

“Dad….” Nadine’s voice cracks. “It’s Livia. She passed out and she won’t wake up!”

My heart immediately drops. I forget everything around me. I turn to my secretary, motioning her to cancel the rest of my appointments for the day.

Without wasting a single second, I say, “I’m on my way.”

I get on my car and drive. The school isn’t supposed to feel so far, but right now, I can’t go fast enough.

Livia… what happened to her?

I worry about her. Nadine has told me a great deal about her—mostly about her secretive nature. Apparently Nadine hasn’t even gone to Livia’s house or seen her parents or even heard anything significant about her personal life. And they’ve been best friends for years.

At first I was suspicious of Livia. I was scared that she was going to be a bad influence to my daughter.

But all of that changed when I met her.

Brown hair unkempt. Clothes old and tattered. Shy, almost reclusive, like she wanted to hide in her own skin. Flinching at the smallest contact.

What caught my attention was the sadness in her eyes.

It was profound. Embedded. It was like a stain that wouldn’t come out.

That’s when it occurred to me that her secretive nature was perhaps rooted in that sadness and shame.

And now I find out that she passed out.

How? Why?

I have no idea.

The traffic clears and I eventually arrive at the school.

There at the gate I see Livia on the ground, surrounded by a small crowd. Her head is nestled on Nadine’s lap. My daughter looks at me, her eyes full of distress.

I waste no time and just take Livia into my arms.

My steps falter. Livia weighs nothing. The weights I lift at the gym are much heavier than her.

“Open the backseat and stay with her there,” I tell Nadine, who immediately obeys. “I’ll take her to my clinic.”

With that, we’re off. The journey is much shorter this time. I carry Livia to one of the vacant rooms, taking out all my tools to inspect her.

“Is she going to be okay?” Tears are streaming down Nadine’s face. “Oh, god… she was very distant all day. I thought she just needed her space. I didn’t know that she….”

“It’s alright, Livia will be fine,” I say.

But those words dry up on my lips when I take Livia’s jacket off and see the bruises on her arms.

The silence in the room is heavy now.

There’s a bunch of them, all in different stages of healing. Some are yellowed and old, some green. Some seem to be fresh, like purple flowers on her skin.

To my horror, there’s also some marks starting to appear on her neck.

My hands get cold as I take her blood pressure and examine her pupils. “Does this happen often?”

“No,” Nadine replies, shaking her head. “This is the first time.”

Strange.

Because she also has a light bruise on her lower lip.

“No concussion, no trauma. Livia’s glucose is low. That’s why she lost consciousness. I’ll get her on glucose now.”

I turn away from Livia, my hands shaking. My mind is already coming up with the worst possible scenarios for Livia’s marks.

“Did Livia ever tell you how she got those bruises?”

Nadine lowers her head. “She keeps saying that she’s clumsy and she falls.”

Lies.

But I just slip the needle into Livia’s hand, making sure she’s not feeling any more pain than she’s already feeling.

***

Livia’s POV

The darkness in my vision slowly clears. Light flickers through my lashes, and at first I thought I was seeing the sky.

Only to see Ford’s handsome face looming above mine.

“Livia,” he whispers, his voice a little distorted as he leans closer.

Is this a dream?

Is he about to kiss me?

I close my eyes, anticipating it.

Then I get a whiff of his minty perfume and it occurs to me that this is real.

With my heart burning with shame, I sit up abruptly. I’m in a clinic—his clinic, by the looks of it. There’s a poster with his contact information in the corner. I have no idea how I ended up here, but it doesn’t matter. I just know I have to get out.

“Woah!” Ford holds me by the shoulders. “Easy there! Don’t move, or you’ll get dizzy!”

As though on cue, the room starts to spin. The bed feels like it’s rocking under my body.

Gently, Ford lays me back down on the bed, fixing my pillows. His torso is almost pressed against mine. I feel the urge to reach out and touch him….

“You good?”

His voice brings me back down to earth.

I meet his eyes. “Y-Yes.” I need to calm down. It’s just his gaze. Warm and comforting and intense. “What am I doing here? I was at school. I was going to take the bus home.”

“You passed out at the gate,” he informs me. “Nadine called me, and we brought you here.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, touching my arm and noticing the needle embedded into my hand.

Panic grips me again.

My jacket is off. So much of my skin is exposed.

My bruises are on display.

“Where’s my jacket?” I ask, stammering. “I need my jacket.”

Ford reaches over and takes it out, draping it over my shoulders. My face heats up even more. I can feel him watching me. I can feel his eyes on my bruises.

“I gave you some glucose through an IV,” he informs me. “But you need to eat.”

“I eat.” I gulp. “I just ate, actually—”

The rest of my words get cut off when Ford takes my hand and places it on his knee, palm up. I try to yank it back, but he holds onto my wrist and cups my chin, making me look up at him as he places something on my hand.

“I’d like to see some proof of that… if you don’t mind, Livia.”