Page 8 of Bosshole Daddy

You belong to me.

The words had carved themselves into my bones, settling in spaces I didn't know existed.

All night, I'd tossed in my narrow bed, clutching my rabbit while those gray eyes haunted me.

The way he'd hidden her from Marcus-Martin.

The brush of his fingers against mine. The weight of his hand on my shoulder, keeping me safe and small and his.

The coffee reached temperature, and I poured it with the mechanical precision I'd developed over two weeks of survival.

Six inches from the right edge of his desk.

Handle at forty-five degrees. The Wall Street Journal folded to the business section.

Everything perfect, everything exactly as he expected, while inside I was chaos.

I couldn't meet his eyes when he arrived at six.

The elevator chimed its announcement, and I busied myself with already-organized files. His footsteps on the plush carpet, that particular rhythm I'd learned to recognize, made my pulse skip.

"Good morning, Mr. Stone." The words came out steady, professional, while every cell in my body went haywire at his proximity.

He paused at my desk. I felt it in the air, that moment of stillness where he usually swept past without acknowledgment. My fingers tightened on the invoice, crinkling the corner.

"Morning."

Just that. One word, delivered in that low voice that had called me little one in the dark. No mention of what had happened between us last night. Then he was moving again, his office door closing with its familiar click, and I could breathe.

Except I couldn't. Not really. Because now I was hyperaware of everything.

The way his shadow moved past the frosted glass when he paced during calls.

The precise moments he preferred his second coffee (10:15) and his third (2:30).

The tone of his voice carrying through the door—sharp with Tokyo, dismissive with Henderson, coldly professional with everyone.

But not with me. Not last night.

I forced myself to focus on the Singapore contracts, highlighting relevant sections with color-coded tabs the way he preferred. But my traitorous mind kept drifting.

"Pathetic," I whispered to myself, organizing the contracts for the third unnecessary time.

He was Damian Stone. Billionaire. Corporate destroyer.

A man who collected companies and discarded assistants with equal efficiency.

And I was just . . . me. Drowning in debt, clinging to childhood comforts, playing dress-up in a world where I'd never belong.

The morning crawled by in a haze of careful avoidance.

When he emerged for the ten o'clock board call, I found fascinating things to study on my computer screen.

When he returned, I was suddenly deeply absorbed in filing.

We performed an elaborate dance of proximity without contact, and I told myself I was relieved.

Then, at 3:47 p.m., his voice cracked through the intercom like a whip.

"My office. Now."

The words sent ice through my veins. That tone—sharp, immediate, brooking no delay—usually preceded someone's career execution.

My mind raced through the day's possible failures.

Had I missed something in the Singapore contracts?

Forgotten a call? Made another catastrophic error that would end with public humiliation?

My legs felt like water as I stood, smoothing my skirt with trembling hands. The walk to his door stretched endless, each step heavier than the last.

I knocked—two quick raps that sounded like a funeral drum.

"Enter."

He stood by the windows, hands clasped behind his back, studying the city below like a general surveying territory. The afternoon light caught his profile, all sharp angles and controlled power, and despite my terror, that traitorous flutter started in my stomach.

"Sir?" My voice came out smaller than intended, barely disturbing the arctic air.

He didn't turn. For long seconds, we existed in that strange suspended space—him commanding the view, me hovering by the door like prey that hadn't decided whether to freeze or flee. Then he glanced at his watch, a gesture so casual it took me a moment to realize he'd spoken.

"You're going to the Albrecht Gala with me Saturday night."

The words hit like a physical blow. I must have misheard. Must have constructed some elaborate auditory hallucination from stress and sleeplessness and too much wanting things I couldn't have.

"Sir?" The word escaped again, stupider this time, while my brain tried to process the impossible.

Now he turned, those gray eyes cutting to mine with laser precision. "Don't make me repeat myself."

But I needed him to repeat himself. Needed subtitles and sign language and possibly a medical examination to confirm I hadn't just had a stroke. The Albrecht Gala. With him. As his . . . what? The implications crashed over me in waves, each more impossible than the last.

"I need a date to keep the wolves at bay." His tone shifted, becoming conversational in that dangerous way that meant every word was calculated. "Everyone knows my ex-fiancée left me high and dry in February—and my competitors smell blood."

February. Four months ago. I'd read about it in those gossip blogs, the socialite who'd called him emotionally unavailable before very publicly taking up with a senator's son. The headlines had been vicious: Stone Cold: Billionaire's Heart Proves Too Frozen for Love.

"You'll play the doting fiancée for the cameras." He moved closer, each step measured, until I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Smile when they expect it. Laugh at my jokes. Look at me like I hung the moon. Standard performance."

Fiancée .

The word lodged in my throat like broken glass. Not date. Not companion. Fiancée .

"In exchange," he continued, studying my face with that penetrating gaze that missed nothing, "I'll add a . . . generous bonus to your next paycheck."

I knew I should ask how much. Should negotiate like someone with backbone and business sense.

But all I could think was how I'd have to look at him like I loved him.

How I'd have to pretend feelings that had been simmering beneath my skin since day one.

How dangerous it would be to play at belonging to him when part of me already believed it.

"Unless," he added, and now that smirk appeared—that cruel curve of lips that meant he already knew he'd won, "you'd rather quit."

There it was. The ultimatum wrapped in silk. Play his perfect fiancée or lose everything. Pretend to adore him or go back to drowning in debt and failure. He knew exactly what he was doing, knew I couldn't afford to refuse, knew he had me trapped as surely as if he'd locked the door.

"I . . ." My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard. "Saturday night?"

"Black tie. I'll have something appropriate sent to your apartment." His gaze swept over my clearance-rack blouse with dismissive efficiency. "Can't have my fiancée showing up in Target's finest."

The casual cruelty of it burned, but underneath was something else. The way he said my fiancée , possessive and certain.

"Yes," I whispered, because what else could I say? "I'll do it."

His smile then was different from the smirk. Sharper. Hungrier. Like I'd just signed something more binding than any employment contract.

"Good girl," he murmured, and those two words sent heat spiraling through me despite every warning bell in my head. "Six o'clock sharp. Don't be late, little one."

He turned back to the windows, dismissal clear, and I fled on unsteady legs.

Back at my desk, I stared at my trembling hands, trying to process what I'd just agreed to.

In three days, I'd be Damian Stone's fake fiancée.

Would wear his ring—God, would there be a ring?

—and his dress and his claim in front of everyone who mattered.

It was just pretend. Just a performance. Just another impossible task from an impossible man.

But as I touched my fingers to my lips, remembering that phantom moment when I thought he might touch me, I wondered which one of us I was trying to convince.

*

The mirror in my bathroom still had that crack running through it, but tonight it split my reflection into something I didn't recognize.

Champagne silk clung to curves I usually hid under polyester and shame, the fabric whispering against my skin like a secret I wasn't supposed to know.

The dress had arrived this morning, delivered by a stone-faced courier who'd required three forms of ID before releasing the black garment bag into my trembling hands.

Inside had been a handwritten card on stationery so thick it could have been carved from marble: Don't disappoint me. - D.S.

Like I needed the reminder. Like I hadn't spent the last three days in a state of controlled panic, imagining all the ways I could humiliate myself, him, or both of us at Manhattan's most exclusive social event.

The dress itself had stolen my breath—designer label I couldn't pronounce, price tag conspicuously absent but radiating expense from every hand-sewn bead.

The slit ran dangerously high up my left thigh, revealing leg I'd frantically shaved three times to ensure smoothness.

The neckline draped in a way that suggested rather than showed, elegant but somehow more provocative than outright exposure.

When I moved, the fabric caught the light, turning me into something gilded and unreal.

I'd pinned my hair back with shaking fingers, leaving tendrils to frame my face because the YouTube tutorial had insisted it looked "effortlessly romantic." A thin ribbon—pale gold to match the dress—trailed down from the clip. My one rebellion, my tiny claim to self in all this performance.