Forbidden Daddy (Broken Boss Daddies #2)

1. Cassie

CASSIE

M onday. The shittiest day of the week. Especially after your Sunday night booty call ghosts you.

"I can’t believe Jeremy didn’t text me back," I groaned to my coworker, Jenny, as we loitered in the break room pretending to be busy.

"Which guy was that, again?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

I shot her a look. "It’s not like there are that many."

Jenny laughed. "What did you send him?"

I paused. My cheeks were on fire.

"Are you blushing? What did you write?"

"It was bad."

"Spill it or I’m definitely getting you set up with Matt from accounting at the holiday party this year."

"Ew, barf! Okay, but I was two glasses of Chardonnay in! I should not be allowed near a phone while tipsy."

She opened her mouth to push harder, and then her jaw hit the floor. I whipped my head around.

Oh, fuck.

Sin-on-a-stick walked into the break room.

Blue eyes. Black hair with streaks of silver. Tattoos that make women do regrettable things. And a suit so tight it looked one stray thread away from popping off those biceps.

We both stopped talking. I stopped breathing.

Roman Creed.

CEO, enforcer-turned-cleaner.

He wasn’t just hot. He was dangerous.

But today? Today, he looked different. Hungrier. His eyes had that don’t-fuck-with-me gleam. That I’m the lion and this is my jungle kind of energy.

"Morning, ladies. Cassie, I need to see you in one hour. My office."

Then, he was gone.

My mind went from ‘bad day’ to ‘panic’.

What the hell does he want? Shit. I really need this job. Am I fired? What did I screw up?

"Okay, what’s wrong with your face?" Jenny asked, waving her hand in front of my eyes.

I blinked back to reality. "What?"

"You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or like Roman Creed just asked you to his office. Oh, wait—" She grinned wickedly. "He did."

"It’s not funny, Jen."

"It’s a little funny. You went from slutty wine-texting confessions to looking like you’re about to throw up."

I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the corner of the break room, lowering my voice to a whisper. "Jenny, you know what this place really is, right?"

She rolled her eyes. "Mahogany desks and offshore accounts, honey. Very fancy, very profitable."

"It’s the blood behind the balance sheets that keeps people in line," I said, my voice dropping even lower. "This isn’t just some financial firm. You know whose money we’re really moving."

Jenny’s expression sobered. The Irish families that controlled half the city’s legitimate businesses—and all of its illegitimate ones. This place was their front, their way of cleaning money that came from sources no one asked about.

"Which is exactly why you need to tell me what you did to get on Roman Creed’s radar," she said, matching my whisper. "We all know better than?—"

"I need to check something," I interrupted, my mind having a vivid, terrible flashback to the single naughty text I sent last night. My hands shook as I pulled out my phone.

Please let it be Jeremy.

Please let it be Jeremy who didn’t respond to my incredibly inappropriate message about what I wanted him to do to me against his kitchen counter.

I scrolled through my messages from last night.

Wine. Bad decisions. And?—

Oh. Fuck. Me.

"Cassie? You’re scaring me."

I stared at my phone screen. The name at the top of my filthy, wine-fueled confession wasn’t Jeremy.

It was Roman Creed.

My boss. My intimidating, gorgeous, rumored-to-have-mafia-connections boss. The man who could fire me with a single word. The man who probably had people disappear for less than accidentally sexting him detailed descriptions of what I wanted done to my body.

"Jenny," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I think I’m going to die."

"What? Why?"

I turned my phone toward her. Her eyes widened as she read the recipient's name, then grew impossibly larger as she glanced down to see the message itself.

"Holy shit, Cassie. You sexted Roman Creed?"

"I didn’t mean to! I thought I was texting Jeremy!"

"What all did you write?" She grabbed my phone before I could stop her, and I watched her face transform from confusion to shock to something that looked like impressed horror.

"Jesus Christ, Cassie. This is… this is detailed. You mentioned handcuffs. And something about begging? And you definitely described what you wanted him to do with his?—"

"JENNY." I snatched my phone back. "Stop talking. Just… stop."

"Okay, okay." She held up her hands in surrender, but she was still grinning. "But seriously, Cassie. This might not be as bad as you think."

"How could it possibly not be that bad? I essentially sent my boss a detailed fantasy about him fucking me senseless!"

"Because Roman Creed doesn’t strike me as the type to call HR about inappropriate workplace communications. He strikes me as the type to handle things… personally."

My stomach dropped. "That’s supposed to make me feel better?"

"Look, you’ve seen how he looks at you during meetings. The man is interested. You just… accelerated the timeline."

I stared at her. "You think he’s interested in me?"

"Cassie, honey, you’re brilliant, gorgeous, and you make his coffee exactly how he likes it every morning. Plus, you’re the only person in this office who doesn’t flinch when he walks into a room."

That was true. While everyone else seemed to scatter like roaches when Roman appeared, I’d always found his intensity more intriguing than terrifying.

Maybe because I’d grown up with an Irish father who had a complicated relationship with authority and violence.

Roman’s darkness felt familiar, not frightening.

But interested in me? That seemed impossible.

This job paid twice what I’d been making at my last company, with benefits so incredible they seemed designed to compensate for something.

Like the fact that our accounting firm handled clients who paid in cash and never asked questions about where their money went after it passed through our books.

I needed this job. My student loans weren’t going to pay themselves, and my one-bedroom apartment cost more per month than some people made in half a year.

"What am I going to say to him?" I asked.

"The truth?"

"That I was drunk and horny and accidentally sent him a detailed description of my sexual fantasies?"

"Or," Jenny said, her eyes lighting up with mischief, "you could own it. Walk into his office like you meant to send it. Like you’re a confident woman who knows what she wants."

"I am not doing that."

"Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?"

"He could fire me. He could call the police. He could have me killed and thrown in the Hudson River."

"Okay, that last one is a little dramatic, even for Roman Creed. Probably."

"Probably?"

My phone buzzed. A calendar notification.

Meeting with Roman Creed – 10:00 AM.

Thirty-seven minutes.

"Look, Cassie. You can either go in there acting like a scared little girl who made a mistake, or you can go in there like the badass woman I know you are. Which version do you think he’d respect more?"

She was right, but that didn’t make the knot in my stomach any smaller.

Roman Creed was a man who commanded respect through presence alone.

He never raised his voice, never made threats, but everyone knew not to cross him.

There were rumors about his family, about where he’d come from before he cleaned up and went legitimate.

Rumors about why certain people who crossed him disappeared from the city entirely.

But in the five months I’d been working as Roman’s assistant, I’d learned to read him better than anyone else in the company.

I knew when he was stressed by the way he rolled his shoulders.

I knew when a deal was going badly by how he drummed his fingers on his desk.

I knew he took his coffee black with two sugars and that he had a weakness for those expensive dark chocolate truffles from the boutique downtown.

I also knew that despite his reputation, he’d been nothing but professional with me. Demanding, yes. Intimidating, absolutely. But never inappropriate. Never crossing lines.

Until now, apparently.

"I need coffee," I said.

"You need courage."

"Coffee is courage."

Jenny laughed. "Fair enough. But Cassie? Whatever happens in there, remember that you’re not some random employee. You’re his assistant. You know his schedule, his preferences, his moods. You have value to him."

The thing was, part of me—a very small, very stupid part—was excited.

For five months, I’d been harboring a completely inappropriate crush on my boss.

For five months, I’d been fantasizing about what it would be like to have his hands on me, his mouth on me, his complete attention focused on nothing but me.

And now he knew what I wanted. Now there was no more pretending, no more wondering. Now there was just truth, messy and terrifying and completely out of my control.

"Fifteen minutes," I said, checking the time, nursing my now half-empty cup of coffee.

"You’ve got this. Just remember—confidence is sexy. Own your sexuality. And if all else fails, remind him that good assistants are hard to find."

I laughed despite my nerves. "Thanks, Jen."

"Anytime. Now go show Roman Creed what he’s been missing."

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and nodded. Whatever happened in Roman’s office, I was going to face it head-on.

?Jenny was right about one thing—I wasn’t just another employee. I was Cassie James, and I was damn good at my job.

Even if I was terrible at managing my wine-induced sext messages.

The walk to Roman’s office felt like a death march.

My heels clicked against the marble floors of the executive level, each step echoing in the hallway lined with expensive art that probably cost more than my annual salary.

The Irish families did nothing halfway—even their money laundering came with impeccable interior design.

I paused outside his door, hand raised to knock, when it swung open.

Roman Creed stepped back inside, his eyes locking onto mine with laser focus. No smile. No warmth. Just pure, undiluted danger wrapped in a three-piece suit.

"Ms. James," he said, his voice low and commanding.