Tempted By My Father's Best Friend
Running from her father's rejection, Isabella arrives in London determined to start over, only to walk straight into temptation and danger. Her obsessive ex is waiting at the airport. And the stranger from her one reckless, unforgettable night in New York is now her new billionaire boss.
*************
"Hello, Isabella." Mateo Rossi's voice is low, smooth, and dangerously familiar, sending heat curling through her before she can stop it.
She freezes. He leans back, eyes dark and unreadable, lingering on her just a little too long.
"I never knew Nathan had a daughter like you," he says softly. "All grown up." Relief floods her.
He doesn't recognize her. Not the girl from that night. Not the one who lost control in his arms. Or he does, and he is choosing to pretend. Because Mateo watches her like she belongs to him. He tests her, corners her, pushes her past every limit she thought she had. Doors close.
Tempers snap. Boundaries blur. And Isabella realizes something far more dangerous than her past catching up to her. London was never her escape. It is his world. And this time, Mateo Rossi has no intention of letting her walk away.
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Chapter 3
Last night I barely slept. The walls in Dad's apartment were thin, and they didn't even try to whisper.
"She'll be fine, Nathan," the girlfriend said in that syrupy voice. "She's a big girl now. Let her go figure it out."
Dad grunted something I couldn't catch-probably agreement. Probably relief. Who knows?
I lay there staring at the ceiling cracks until my eyes burned, then gave up and scrolled flight confirmations on my phone for the hundredth time. Anything to drown them out. Anything to pretend I wasn't already gone in my head.
Morning came gray and cold. I dragged my suitcase to the door without knocking. No one came to see me off. No hug. No "good luck." Just the echo of the front door clicking shut behind me like a period at the end of a sentence nobody wanted to finish.
At the gate, I whispered to the empty seat beside me, "To your face, Mom." Then I closed my eyes and let the plane carry me away.
I slept the entire flight-deep, dreamless at first, then softer. In the haze I saw myself in crisp scrubs, clipboard in hand, people thanking me, paying me. A real life. A smile tugged at my lips even in sleep.
Until my neck snapped sideways against the window and I jolted awake with a sharp hiss. Heathrow. London. New start.
The company had arranged a driver. I followed the texted instructions through arrivals, dodging luggage carts and accents thicker than fog. I kinda loved it.
When I spotted the car, my stomach dropped. Not a taxi. A sleek black Ferrari, low and predatory, idling at the curb like it owned the whole airport.
Was i being trafficked or kidnapped?
I double-checked the number. Called. A voice answered... almost familiar, clipped, calm.
I walked over anyway. Opened the back door. Slid inside.
"Huh-Hello," I said quietly.
Silence.
The driver wore dark shades, black suit, hands steady on the wheel. He glanced at me in the rearview. Then he reached up and slowly removed the glasses.
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack one.
Ethan.
My Ethan. The one who ghosted me in Berlin without a word. The one who'd made me feel small, owned, then disposable.
"Hi, Isabella," he said, expression blank-the same flat, expectant look he used whenever he wanted me to fall in line.
I gripped the door handle. Every instinct screamed get out. But my legs wouldn't move.
"You're calling the pickup line," he said, almost amused. "I work for Mr. Mateo Rossi now. He asked me personally to collect you."
I swallowed. Nodded once. Forced a tight smile.
He drove in silence at first. Then faster. Too fast. The Ferrari growled through traffic like it was hunting. I watched his eyes flick to the mirror every few seconds-watching me. Always watching.
We pulled up to a towering glass building in Canary Wharf. Gold letters on the side: **R**ossi **E**nterprises. Twenty-plus floors of polished arrogance.
"You start tomorrow. Nine sharp," Ethan said. "Boss's office. Don't be late-he'll be gone by ten if you're not there."
He handed me a sleek key fob. Our fingers brushed. He held on a second too long. Yuck!
"Room 203," he murmured. "Mr. Rossi arranged the apartment himself... Bell."
The old pet name hit like a slap. My stomach twisted-part rage, part something darker I refused to name.
I yanked my hand free and stepped out. Didn't look back until I reached the entrance. He was still there, leaning against the car, arms crossed, smirking like he'd already won.
"I know you're nothing without me, Bell," he called. "I can still help you."
Something snapped.
I dropped my bag. Marched back. And slapped him-hard. The crack echoed off the glass.
"Fuck you, Ethan," I hissed. "Fuck you forever."
Then I ran. Up the steps. Into the elevator. Into 203. Door locked. Back against it. Sobbing until my throat burned.
Why did it still hurt? Why did his voice still make my knees weak? Why did I hate that part of me still remembered how his hands used to feel safe before they turned controlling?
I cried until I couldn't anymore. Then I crawled into the too-perfect bed-fresh sheets, plush pillows, city lights glittering through floor-to-ceiling windows-and slept like the dead.
Morning came crisp and merciless.
The apartment was stupidly nice. Open-plan kitchen, rainfall shower, king bed that smelled faintly of cedar. I ran the coffee maker (after three failed attempts), showered until the water went cold, and dressed in my best attempt at professional: burnt-orange dress, hair smoothed back, old purse clutched like a shield.
Taxi to the building. Nine o'clock on the dot. First impression matters.
Elevator ride up with a woman in a flawless pink suit-hair perfect, heels lethal. She smelled like money. I smelled like anxiety and last season's perfume.
She stepped off on fifteen with a polite "Bye." I smiled back, wondering if she could see the peeling leather on my shoes. I could.
Reception: a man in a sunshine-yellow suit, receding hairline, overly white teeth. He directed me to the top floor without small talk.
I knocked once. Pushed the door open.
He was at the desk-back to the window, city sprawling behind him like a kingdom. Dark suit. Sleeves rolled to the elbows. Tattoos curling around his forearm. That same Blancpain watch catching the light.
I knew before he turned.
He did. Slowly.
Our eyes met.
"Hello, Isabella," Mateo Rossi said. Voice low. Rich. Familiar in ways that made heat pool low in my belly.
I froze.
He leaned back in his chair, studying me like a puzzle he'd already solved.
"I never knew Nathan had a daughter quite like you," he said, the faintest curve to his lips. "All grown up."
Relief crashed through me so hard my knees almost buckled.
He didn't recognize me. Not from the bar. Not from the penthouse. Not from the way I'd moaned his name while he fucked me senseless.
Or... he was pretending.
I forced my voice steady. "Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Rossi."
He gestured to the chair across from him.
"Sit."
I did.
His gaze never left my face.
"Huhhhhhhh" he nodded as he stared longer.
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9.6
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7.5
I didn't fall for him.
I crashed.
Liam Cage wasn't supposed to matter. He was just the arrogant stranger with a dangerous smile and eyes that undressed me in a single glance. Just a man passing through my life.
Until our parents got married.
Now he's everywhere, in the kitchen at midnight, leaning against doorframes like he owns the air I breathe. In the hallway, too close. Always too close. Every look between us feels like a secret. Every argument feels like foreplay. Every silence feels loaded.
We don't talk about it.
We don't have to.
Because the truth is there in the way my pulse stutters when he says my name. In the way he watches me like he's trying to decide whether to ruin me - or save me.
He's wrong.
For me.
For my family.
For my sanity.
But when he touches me, the world narrows down to skin and heat and the terrifying realization that some mistakes don't feel like mistakes at all.
They feel inevitable.
This story is about craving what you shouldn't, crossing lines you swore you wouldn't, and discovering that sometimes the most dangerous love is the one that feels the most real.
8.8
My little boy died on the operating table during a minor, routine surgery.
That exact same night, my billionaire husband bought out the Hudson River for a massive, million-dollar fireworks show.
It wasn't to mourn our child. It was to celebrate his first love's son being discharged from the hospital.
When I confronted him with our son's death certificate, he sneered and accused me of hiding the boy to get his attention.
He held his mistress in our home, watched her fake a panic attack, and threatened to bankrupt my family if I didn't get on my knees and apologize to her.
But the most horrifying truth came from a terrified hospital nurse.
My son's anesthesia was deliberately kept low during the procedure to keep his tissue viable to save the mistress's child.
He was awake and in agonizing pain while his own father planned a grand celebration for another man's son.
I couldn't understand how a father could be so completely heartless.
How could he sacrifice his own flesh and blood just to please a woman who constantly manipulated him?
Looking at the ashes on my son's favorite toy, my paralyzing grief evaporated, replaced by a cold, unyielding rage.
I arranged my little boy's funeral alone in the freezing rain, left my wedding ring on the counter, and walked straight into the private hotel suite of my husband's most ruthless business rival.
"Let's take him down," I said.
8.7
I finally stepped onto American soil after four years of exile, clutching my suitcase with white-knuckled desperation. My plan was simple: get to Manhattan, start my job, and stay as far away from the Newton family as possible.
But the moment I turned on my phone, Sterling Newton’s voice cut through the air like a blade. He had already sent a car; he didn't care about my plans, my apartment, or my freedom. He wanted me back in that suffocating mansion, and he expected me to obey.
When I arrived, the house felt like a mausoleum. My adoptive mother smothered me in a desperate, suffocating embrace, while my father and sister acted as if my departure had never happened. Then, the heavy front door thudded shut. Barron Newton had arrived.
He didn't greet me with warmth; he looked at me like a piece of furniture that had been moved out of place. He spent the entire dinner dismantling my resolve, using my deepest guilt as a weapon to force me to stay, making it clear that I was merely a prisoner in his gilded cage.
I felt like I was suffocating. How could he have so much power over my life? Why was he so determined to keep me trapped in this house, and what was he truly waiting for in the shadows of the night?
I retreated to my room, feeling the invisible chains tightening around my throat. Just as I thought I had found a way to fight back, a message from Fernando flashed on my screen, warning me that our original plan was in ruins. I realized then that I wasn't just fighting the Newtons—I was fighting a war on two fronts, and the countdown to my destruction had already begun.
7.7
I spent two years trying to please Xander Yates, thinking he was the man who would help me save my family’s struggling manufacturing business. As a former senior legal counsel, I thought I knew how to handle sharks, but I never expected the man I loved to be the one who would try to skin me alive.
Everything shattered at a high-end gala when I felt a chemical fire start in my marrow. Xander had spiked my drink, chasing me through the hotel corridors with a predatory smile, ready to take by force what I wouldn't give him willingly.
I barely escaped into an elevator, stealing a key card from a man in a sharp grey suit and collapsing in room 8086. That stranger turned out to be Crockett Blackburn, the "Ice King of Wall Street" and a man my family had spent years avoiding. He didn't save me out of the goodness of his heart; he saved me because he saw a "messy variable" he could turn into a weapon. By morning, Xander was blackmailing me with a video of me drugged, and Crockett was offering me a deal that felt like a deal with the devil. He would save my factory, but only if I gave him 51% controlling interest and became his personal legal counsel.
The humiliation was total. Xander called me a junkie and a slut, while Crockett looked at the bruises on my neck with the cold, clinical assessment of a man checking a damaged piece of equipment. When a secret bid was leaked, Crockett didn't hesitate to pin the blame on me, accusing me of working with my ex to drive up the price.
I was a pawn in a game between two monsters, one who wanted to destroy my body and another who wanted to own my soul and my family’s legacy. I had lost my apartment, my reputation, and my safety in less than twenty-four hours.
"I don't like it when people break my things," Crockett told me as he applied ointment to the marks Xander left on my throat.
I realized then that if I wanted to survive, I had to stop being the victim and start being the predator. I signed the contract, moved into Blackburn’s penthouse, and prepared for a scorched-earth war against the Yates family. I don't care if Crockett Blackburn is using me as a leash—as long as he lets me be the one to bite.