Page 12 of Bosshole Daddy

I should have thanked him for the evening. Got out of the car. Said goodnight like a professional, like someone who hadn't just called him Daddy on a balcony.

But my mouth had other plans.

"Would you . . ." The words came out breathy, desperate. I cleared my throat, tried again. "Would you like to come up? For a minute? I mean, just . . ."

Just what? Just to continue what we'd started? Just to push me against my apartment door and finish destroying every boundary I'd built? Just to make me call him Daddy again in the privacy of my shabby studio where no one could witness my complete surrender?

He cocked his head slightly, a predator considering prey that had just offered itself up on a silver platter. His lips curved—not quite a smile, more like satisfaction at a chess piece moving exactly where he'd predicted.

"For a minute?" The question held weight, challenge, promise.

I swallowed hard, looking away from those knowing eyes. My cheeks burned hot enough to light the poorly maintained streetlamp flickering overhead. "Just—I should . . . thank you. For tonight. And I . . . have tea."

"Tea." He repeated it deadpan, but I heard the amusement underneath. Like I was a child offering to share my toys, adorable in my transparency.

"You don't have to," I rushed out, humiliation creeping up my neck. What was I doing? Inviting my boss—my Daddy, that traitorous voice whispered—up to my disaster of an apartment for tea like this was some Jane Austen novel instead of whatever dark, twisted fairy tale we'd stumbled into. "I just—"

He moved then, shifting closer to me so that the driver wouldn’t hear.

This close, I could smell him again—cologne and champagne and that deep, dark, musky smell.

His voice dropped to that register that bypassed my brain entirely, speaking directly to parts of me that had been dormant until he'd awakened them with a title and a kiss.

"Little one, you don't invite me up if you don't mean it." His eyes searched mine, and I felt laid bare under that gray gaze. "Are you sure?"

The question hung between us, heavy with meaning. Was I sure I wanted him in my space? Was I sure I could handle him seeing how I really lived, away from designer dresses and champagne bubbles? Was I sure I was ready for whatever came next, for wherever this thing between us was heading?

My breath caught in my throat, trapped like the words I couldn't quite say.

But my body knew the answer, had known it since that first morning when he'd swept past my desk trailing authority and danger.

I nodded, a tiny movement that felt enormous, unable to meet his eyes because they'd see too much, know too much, take too much.

His smile sharpened then, satisfaction bleeding through the amusement. Not cruel, but knowing. Like I'd just confirmed something he'd suspected all along.

"That's what I thought."

He gave the driver instructions to wait, then we got out. The air was cold and it felt like everything was suddenly in high definition. My senses were on high alert, my heart pounded like a drum.

He climbed the steps beside me, his presence turning my familiar stairwell into something foreign.

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting shadows that made him look larger, more imposing.

My heels clicked against worn linoleum, each step feeling like a choice, a surrender, a step deeper into whatever web we were weaving.

At my door—apartment 5C, the C hanging crooked because the screw had been loose for months—I slid the key in. The lock turned with a click that echoed in the narrow hallway, and then we were inside, the door closing behind us with finality that made my pulse skip.

He’d already looked around before, and his eyes were stuck on me, not taking in anything of my apartment. Then, he said in that low, deliberate voice that commanded boardrooms and apparently my entire nervous system: "You hungry?"

I nodded.

“Let me fix something for us.”

He moved through my tiny kitchen with that same controlled grace he used to dominate boardrooms, but here, between my chipped cabinets and ancient appliances, he looked impossibly out of place—a panther prowling through a dollhouse.

My fingers found the hem of my dress, worrying the expensive fabric between thumb and forefinger while I watched him open my refrigerator with the same deliberate purpose he probably used to review quarterly reports.

The fluorescent bulb inside flickered, casting harsh light on my pathetic food situation.

A half-empty jar of peanut butter. A carton of eggs I'd optimistically purchased two weeks ago. Wilted lettuce in the crisper that had seen better days. The world’s loneliest bottle of sriracha.

His frown deepened with each revelation, that muscle in his jaw ticking the way it did when someone presented him with subpar work. Except this time, I was the subpar work. My lifestyle, my choices, my complete inability to take care of myself on display under that unforgiving refrigerator light.

He moved to the cabinets next, finding them barely better stocked.

A box of Earl Grey—at least that was fresh.

Instant oatmeal, the kind you bought in bulk and lived on when money got tight.

Which was always. Half a loaf of bread that had started to spot with mold at the corners.

He held it up between two fingers like evidence in a crime, and I wanted to sink through the floor.

"Isla." Just my name, but the disappointment in it made my stomach clench.

He turned to face me, leaning back against my counter like he owned it.

Like he owned everything he touched, including me.

The contrast of him there—still in his tux, bow tie hanging loose, looking like sin and authority—against my shabby kitchen made my head spin.

Or maybe that was just him, the way he looked at me with those gray eyes that saw too much.

"What did you eat today?"

The question was soft, but I heard the steel underneath. This wasn't a casual inquiry. This was an interrogation, and we both knew I'd fail it.

I couldn't meet his eyes, focusing instead on a chip in the formica where I'd dropped a plate last month. My voice came out small, matching how I felt under his scrutiny. "Toast."

His brow lifted in that way that meant he was waiting for more. When I didn't offer it, he prompted, "And?"

The word hung between us, patient and implacable. I squirmed in my chair, the silk dress suddenly feeling like it was made of sandpaper against my overheated skin.

"...tea," I added, even quieter. The admission tasted like failure.

He exhaled through his nose, a controlled sound that somehow conveyed more disappointment than any lecture could have. His head shook slowly, deliberately, like I was a problem he needed to solve.

"Little one, you can't just run on crumbs and caffeine." The endearment in that tone—exasperated but fond—made my chest tight. "Not on my watch."

On his watch. Like I was his responsibility now. Like what I ate mattered to him beyond this moment, this strange domestic scene we'd stumbled into. The implications made my head dizzy, or maybe that was the hunger I'd been ignoring all day finally catching up.

Before I could stammer out an excuse—work was busy, I forgot, I'm fine really—he was already pulling out his phone. Those elegant fingers that had gripped my waist, that had tangled in my hair, now swiped across the screen with brutal efficiency.

"Protein," he muttered, apparently to himself as he navigated whatever app he'd opened. "Vegetables. Real carbs. Not that processed garbage."

"I can't—" I started, thinking of my bank balance, of the carefully rationed groceries that had to last another week.

"You can and you will." He didn't even look up from his phone. "You're not leaving this table until you've eaten every bite. Is that understood?"

The command in his voice sent an involuntary shiver through me. This was the man who'd made executives cry, who'd dismantled companies before breakfast, who'd kissed me on a balcony until I couldn't remember my own name. And now he was ordering me to eat dinner like I was a recalcitrant child.

"Yes, sir," I mumbled, the title automatic.

Then, because some part of me needed to push back against his casual takeover of my life, I added under my breath: "Bossy."

That made him look up, and the faint curve of his mouth sent heat spiraling through my belly. Not his boardroom smirk or his predatory smile, but something softer. Amused. Like my tiny rebellion was cute rather than insubordinate.

"If I weren't bossy," he said, setting his phone aside and moving closer, "you'd probably skip meals and faint on me."

He stopped just outside of touching distance, but I could feel the heat of him, smell that cologne that had branded itself into my memory. This close, I could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his eyes had gone darker in my dim kitchen lighting.

"I wouldn’t. I haven’t fainted for months.”

My cheeks warmed under his scrutiny, and I ducked my head, but not before catching the way his expression softened further. He leaned one hip against the table, casual in a way that was anything but, and delivered the killing blow in that dry tone that made my insides liquid:

"You're lucky you're cute."

I pressed my thighs together under the table, grateful for the coverage of the dress, trying to ignore the way my body responded to his casual assessment.

He was ordering me food. Taking care of me.

Calling me cute in my disaster of a kitchen while I sat there in a gown that cost more than everything else I owned combined.

The contrast of it all—the domestic care wrapped in D/s dynamics, the attraction thrumming between us even as he scolded me for not eating—made my head spin. Or maybe that was still the hunger. Or him. Probably him.