The little girl skidded to a halt when she spotted me, brown eyes going wide with the kind of unfiltered curiosity that made adults reach for alcohol.
"Who's that?" She pointed at me like I was an exotic zoo animal. "Is that your new girlfriend?"
My face went thermonuclear. Full Chernobyl. Scientists would study the radiation levels for decades, really.
Raphael's entire body went rigid with the kind of protective father energy that could probably bend steel.
His jaw clenched so tight I worried about his dental work.
"Lily, this is Dakota. She works with me as a… business partner."
The formality in his voice could've frozen hell.
We'd gone from 'almost kissing' to 'discussing quarterly reports' in seconds.
"Dakota, this is my daughter Lily," he added, like I hadn't figured that out from the 'Daddy' screaming and the genetic similarities.
"Hi," I managed, my vocabulary apparently decimated by a second-grader's presence.
Lily tilted her head, studying me with the intensity of a tiny scientist. "You're really pretty. Are you going to marry my daddy?"
Jesus Christ on a cracker…
"Lily, why don't you go show your picture to Uncle Titus? He's in his office." He was already herding her toward the door with the desperation of someone defusing a bomb. "Come on, sweetheart, let's go find him. He loves glitter."
"But I want to talk to the pretty lady—"
"Uncle Titus has chocolate cookies," Raphael said, playing his trump card.
"COOKIES!" And just like that, Hurricane Lily changed course, dragging her father out the door.
Raphael shot me one last look, part apology, part mortification, part something else I couldn't decipher, before disappearing into the hallway.
The office felt weirdly empty without them, like all the oxygen had followed them out. I sat there for a solid minute, trying to process what had just happened.
Almost-kiss to meeting his daughter to marriage proposals from a seven-year-old.
Just another Friday in the glamorous life of Dakota Freeman.
But as the adrenaline faded, reality sucker-punched me in the gut.
Raphael had a daughter. Which meant there was probably a Mrs. Sullivan at home, waiting for him. The same man who was two seconds away from kissing me before his daughter cockblocked us both.
Stephen with those lingering stares that make my brain short-circuit? Titus brushing my hand every time he passes me documents like we're in some slow-burn romance?
All of it suddenly felt like a neon sign flashing "DISASTER AHEAD."
Nope. Absolutely fucking not.
This isn't some rivals-to-lovers novel. This is Dad's business partners and his disaster daughter caught in forced proximity on a project that could make or break my entire career.
The Sullivan brothers weren't just gorgeous distractions—they were a professional minefield I couldn't afford to navigate blindfolded.
Time for an emergency reality check: I cannot let myself fall any deeper into this mess.
I needed boundaries. Steel-reinforced, titanium-coated boundaries.
Starting now.
* * *
The next few weeks, I became a professional ghost. Strategic avoidance was my new religion, and I worshipped at the altar of Not Fucking Up My Career.
Raphael? Emails only. Short. Clinical. Punctuated with enough corporate jargon to build a firewall between us.
It wasn’t just the almost-kiss, though that moment replayed in my mind like a guilty pleasure I couldn’t scrub away.
It was the way my breath had caught, how easily I’d leaned into that heat between us. How badly I’d wanted it.
That scared me more than anything. Because if I let it happen, even once, I knew I wouldn’t stop at once.
Stephen? Group meetings with at least three human shields between us, preferably in public spaces where flirtation would be professionally suicidal.
They were more than a decade older.
Seasoned. Established. Men who had already built something of their own. I was still clawing toward something I hoped would be mine.
To them, maybe I was just the smart daughter of a desperate CEO—someone with potential, sure, but still junior. Still too young. Still not quite equal.
What if I proved them right?
The Meridian Tower project was our firm’s last, best shot. If I fucked it up, my father’s firm wouldn’t survive. And no matter how cold our relationship had become, I wasn’t going to be the reason it collapsed.
So I locked it down. Every impulse. Every blush. Every what-if.
And beneath all that? Another secret shame I couldn’t shake.
The Reddit post.
That stupid, impulsive, anonymous confession I'd made weeks ago—equal parts fantasy and therapy—was still floating out there in the void.
I’d never deleted it. It had gone semi-viral. If anyone connected it to me, it would be a PR nightmare. If the Sullivans found it? I’d never be able to look them in the eye again.
So I played it safe. With everyone. Especially them.
Titus was the only one I couldn’t avoid entirely—his engineering specs required weekly collaboration. But even with him, I kept it brief and impersonal. He preferred Slack messages anyway, and I used that to my advantage.
Every update was concise, every note double-checked for errors. No emojis. No small talk.
He didn’t push. Just sent a thumbs-up, or the occasional “Noted,” in that signature deadpan tone I could almost hear in my head.
And still, I missed being near them.
But I’d made a choice and I had to see through.
When I hit two months into this professional purgatory, I’d been invited—summoned, really—to breakfast at my parents’ house. The kind of quiet, formal affair where no one actually enjoyed the food because the real meal was judgment.
My father barely looked up from his perfectly buttered toast when he delivered the blow.
“The Sullivans are coming for dinner Friday,” he announced, like he hadn’t just sentenced me to an evening of torture. “Wear something appropriate.”
"Define appropriate."
"Not whatever you're thinking." He didn't even look up from his Financial Times. "This is a professional dinner, Dakota. Act accordingly."
And then Friday arrived like a hangover—inevitable and deeply unpleasant.
I chose a dress that screamed 'takes me seriously' and heels that whispered 'but could still step on your neck.' The brothers arrived together, looking like a GQ spread had come to life in my foyer.
"Gentlemen," my father greeted them with more warmth than he'd shown me in twenty-two years. "Welcome to our home."
Dinner was actually... nice?
Raphael complimented my mother's cooking with surprising sincerity. Stephen charmed her with stories about architecture failures. Titus helped clear plates without being asked.
It was almost normal. If you ignored the undercurrent of sexual tension that could've powered a small city.
"Dakota was quite the imaginative child," my mother said, deep into her third glass of wine. "Always building things in the garden."
"Mother—"
"Oh, tell them about the fairy houses!" She was in full embarrassing parent mode now. "She'd spend hours constructing these elaborate little homes out of twigs and leaves."
"They were architecturally sound structures," I defended, face burning.
"Her grandmother called her Tinker Bell," my father added, surprising me by jumping into the story. "She'd wear these little wings and everything."
"Okay, family story time is over—"
"Tinker Bell?" Stephen's eyes lit up with recognition that made my blood freeze. "That's adorable."
"Exactly!" My mother beamed, oblivious to my internal panic. "She'd even leave little notes for the fairies, asking about their structural preferences."
Raphael actually laughed—a real, genuine sound that transformed his face. "That explains the attention to detail in your work."
"See?" My father said, raising his glass. "I told you she had potential. Just needs the right guidance."
The rest of dinner passed in a blur of professional compliments and childhood embarrassments.
The brothers praised my work on Meridian Tower, my innovative solutions, my dedication. For the first time in weeks, I felt like maybe I could do this.
Maybe I could be professional and successful and worthy of the Freeman legacy.
That feeling lasted exactly until the front door closed behind them.
"Dakota." My father's voice had that particular tone that meant a lecture was incoming. "A word."