Violet: WTF is a DILF?
I rolled my eyes.
Me: Daddy I’d Like to Fuck.
I sat on a chair and opened the tray filled with food and dug in while contemplating how to fill another day without the job I loved. I searched for distractions—anything to replace the adrenaline I used to thrive off of—but nothing really fit. Every substitute felt hollow, like a bad trade for the intensity I’d lost.
Except for one.
And the DILF down the hall had no one to blame but himself for riling me into this pent-up state.
Chapter 18
Kian
Isat behind my desk, the low hum of my computer filling the quiet as Kingston Ashford’s email glowed on the screen.
The blue light reflected faintly off the polished wood and I set my glasses on the desk, pinching the bridge of my nose as I took in this latest revelation.
Amir was seated across from me, relaxed but alert, one ankle resting on his knee like this was just another routine briefing.
“You should let me collect those men,” he said for the third time.
We both knew he couldn’t leave Albania without the risk of getting picked up by Interpol, and that was the last thing we needed.
“I’ll deploy other resources to retrieve them,” I replied, keeping my voice even. “Once they cross into Albania, they’re yours. You can prep them for me then.”
Amir studied me for a moment, dark eyes sharp, before nodding. He wasn’t thrilled, but he accepted it.
A faint murmur drifted down the hallway, and my body reacted before my mind did. Every muscle locked, breath slowing as I listened, irrationally convinced that if I moved, the sound would vanish.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d been waiting—actually waiting—for Sophie to come out of her room. The anticipation hadbeen buzzing under my skin, stupid and eager, like a schoolboy with his first crush, not a man who’d built an empire on discipline and control.
I shook my head, irritation coiling tight in my chest. This was ridiculous. I was too old for this nonsense, too self-aware to be standing frozen by footsteps and hope. I needed to pull my head out of my ass and remember exactly who I was supposed to be.
Her protector.
I forced my attention back to Amir.
“Why are you looking so smug?” I asked.
We’d been close long before my Albanian grandfather died. When I finally took over and appointed Amir as my right-hand man and my personal bodyguard, I realized there was no one I trusted more. That trust, however, did not extend to him acting like my keeper or sitting there grinning like he knew my thoughts better than I did.
Naturally, he looked completely unbothered. “You’re too obsessed with that redhead’s chaos.”
“You’re really asking to be shot,” I muttered.
He lifted both hands in surrender, amusement flashing in his eyes. It was a silentI rest my casegesture.
“It’s easy to recognize the signs when you’re a man obsessed yourself,” I retorted wryly. “With a certain brunette that doesn’t take your shit.”
He shot me a blank look. “Don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” I said, deciding not to rib him on the topic of his obvious infatuation with Dina and their secret rendezvous. Instead, I pressed the intercom. “Sonya?”
A minute later, the door opened and my housekeeper stepped inside.
“How is our guest doing?” I asked.
