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 4
I sank into the leather chair across from him, pulse roaring in my ears. Mateo's gaze swept over me-slow, deliberate, like he was cataloging every detail: the way my dress clung slightly from nerves, the faint tremble in my hands pressed flat against my thighs.
"Most employees start at nine and leave at five," he said, voice low and even. "You? Ten to six. I don't want you wandering the streets after dark."
I managed a tight, polite smile and nodded. Ten to six. Safe hours. Protective. Almost fatherly.
Except nothing about the man in front of me felt fatherly.
I kept my eyes on the edge of his desk, terrified that if I looked too long he'd see the recognition flash in my own. The memory was still too fresh: his weight pinning me to silk sheets, the way he'd growled my name while he thrust into me, the way I'd begged without shame.
If he remembered-if he put it together-that one reckless night could ruin everything. My father's oldest friendship. My fragile new job. My last shred of dignity.
Balls!
My father had already thrown me away. What was one more betrayal?
Mateo leaned back, fingers steepled. "Anything you want to say, Isabella?"
I shook my head quickly, lips pressed into what I hoped looked like a neutral smile.
"As my personal nurse, your office will be on the executive floor. Private. No mingling with the rest of the staff. You're here for one reason only." He paused, then rose.
He rounded the desk. Stopped right in front of me. Close enough that I could smell that same dark musk-and-leather cologne from the bar. From the penthouse.
My breath caught. Damn.
He looked down at me for a long beat, expression unreadable. Then he sighed-soft, almost regretful.
"I promised your father I'd look after you," he said quietly. "So keep your head down. Do your job. Stay out of trouble. We'll be fine."
He returned to his chair. The moment stretched. I sat frozen, thighs clenched, trying desperately not to let my mind replay every filthy second of that night.
His voice alone was doing things to me. Deep. Commanding. The same timbre that had ordered me to look at him while he fucked me senseless.
I pictured it again-unbidden, unstoppable. Crawling to him on my knees. Fingers fumbling with his belt. Lips parting as I took him deep, tasting salt and heat, hearing him groan "good girl" while his hand fisted my hair. Then straddling him, sinking down slowly, arching so he could suck my nipples raw, biting just hard enough to make me cry out-
"Hey. Isabella."
Three sharp claps snapped me back.
My face flamed. Heat pooled between my legs-wet, insistent, embarrassing. I squirmed in the seat, praying he couldn't smell it. Don't know if it would be possible. But still. So he couldn't see the way my chest rose and fell too fast.
"I'm sorry," he said, softer now. "You just flew in yesterday. You must be exhausted."
Before I could answer, his hand settled on the top of my head-gentle, almost tender. Fingers threaded lightly through my hair, massaging my scalp in slow circles.
A low, involuntary moan slipped past my lips.
I froze. Mortified.
His touch stilled. Then withdrew.
When I dared look up, his eyes had darkened-pupils blown, jaw tight. The same look he'd worn right before he pinned my wrists and told me he was going to ruin me.
"Go home," he said abruptly.
Panic spiked through me. "Did I-did I do something wrong?"
Tears pricked hot and fast. If he fired me now-if I had to crawl back to New York with nothing-
He exhaled roughly. "No. You look like you haven't eaten. Haven't slept properly." His voice gentled. "Have you had breakfast?"
I shook my head, wiping at my eyes.
He pulled out his wallet-thick, black leather-and peeled off several crisp fifty-euro notes. Pressed them into my palm.
"One of my drivers will take you back. I'll have food sent over." He held my gaze. "Take care of yourself, Isabella. I'll check on you this evening."
I left in a daze.
The chauffeur was silent the whole ride. I clutched the money like it might burn me.
Back in the apartment, I stripped and stepped into the shower. The hot water hit my skin and I sagged against the tile, fingers sliding down my stomach, between my thighs.
The memory flooded back: Mateo above me, eyes locked on mine, thrusting slow and deep while he whispered filthy promises. I circled my clit, whimpering, chasing the ghost of that stretch, that fullness-
The doorbell rang.
I yelped, grabbed a towel, wrapped it around myself. Hair dripping. Skin flushed. Thighs slick.
I opened the door expecting a delivery guy.
Mateo stood there. Dark suit. No tie. Eyes raking over me like he was starving.
"You said evening," I blurted.
A slow, dangerous smile curved his mouth.
He stepped inside. Closed the door with a soft click. Reached out and brushed wet strands from my cheek.
"You're soaked, Angioletto."
My breath hitched. "I-I just showered."
"How wet are you, Isabella?" His voice dropped to gravel.
I clutched the towel tighter. Legs trembling.
He crowded closer. One hand cupped my jaw, thumb brushing my lower lip. "When I ask you a question..."
He kissed me-soft at first. Then deeper. Hungrier.
The towel slipped. I tried to catch it. He caught my wrists instead. Pinned them gently behind me.
"Don't hide from me," he murmured against my mouth. "I want to see all of you. I want every fucking inch."
He lifted me like I weighed nothing. Carried me to the bedroom. Laid me on the crisp sheets. Spread my thighs wide.
I whimpered when the cool air hit my soaked center.
"Look at you," he rasped, eyes devouring me. "So pretty. So ready."
He kissed down my stomach, my hips, inner thighs. Hot breath ghosting over my clit.
"We're not fucking today," he said, lips brushing my folds. "Not yet. I want you begging first. Desperate. Dripping. Saying my name like a prayer."
Disappointment and need twisted inside me.
Then his tongue-flat, slow, deliberate-dragged up my slit.
I cried out. Back arching. Fingers fisting the sheets.
He ate me like he was making up for lost time. Sucking my clit. Thrusting two thick fingers inside. Curling. Pumping. Tongue flicking in relentless circles.
"Please-" I gasped. "Mateo-please fuck me-"
He only hummed against me. The vibration sent me spiraling.
My thighs shook. Stomach clenched. Walls fluttered around his fingers.
"Cum for me, Angioletto," he growled against my pussy. "Let me taste how much you need this."
I shattered.
Hard. Loud. Whole body jerking as pleasure ripped through me in violent waves.
He didn't stop until I was boneless. Gasping. Tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
Then he crawled up. Kissed me deep-letting me taste myself on his tongue.
"Sleep," he whispered against my lips.
I did. Curled against his chest. His arms around me like they belonged there.
I didn't know what this was.
I didn't know how long it could last.
But right then, with his heartbeat steady under my cheek and the city lights bleeding through the curtains, I didn't care.
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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.
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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.