It's a half-empty bottle of wine, Friday night and me losing my shit because Raphael Sullivan said five words that broke my brain: "Let's have dinner tomorrow night."
Not "meeting." Not "working dinner."
Just... dinner. Like we were normal people. Wild.
The happiness hit weird. Smiled at three strangers on the way to the cab. Made small talk with the driver.
Who was I? Since when did I do feelings at normal levels?
"Marcello's," I told the cub driver, trying not to think about changing outfits three times.
This tiny black dress with my lacquered stilettos walked the thin line between "I'm professional" and "I have a body with needs."
The forever work-clothes problem.
So when Mr. CEO suggested we "relax as a team," my tired brain tried to hear "free food" and "wine" instead of “a night in the company of three porn-looking older men”. Signed me up without asking anyway.
The smart move? Cancel. Fake sick. Keep boundaries.
The Dakota move? Show up in a dress that hangs all of the curves I possess in the best way possible and might present me as a woman instead of one of the corporate world’s creatures.
Playing it safe had gotten me nowhere. Safe was spreadsheets at 2 AM and my father's disappointed face and three years without sex that had my vibrator begging for mercy.
Safe was slowly dying while checking email.
Fuck safe.
I wanted one night where I didn't overthink every word.
Where I could laugh at Stephen's bad jokes without timing my response. Where I could argue about buildings with Titus without keeping my distance. Where I could exist near Raphael without my daddy issues doing backflips.
One dinner. What could go wrong?
Everything. Everything could go wrong.
Marcello's was the kind of Italian place where the waiters judged how you said "bruschetta" and the wine cost more than people’s car payment.
The Sullivans fit right in, while I felt like a kid playing dress-up.
The conversations behind our table flowed easier than good wine, and somewhere between the appetizers and main course, I forgot to be professional.
Stephen told a story about a construction disaster with a porta-potty and a crane that had me crying from laughter.
Titus and I got into a heated debate about ugly concrete buildings that would've bored anyone else but felt like foreplay for architecture nerds.
Raphael actually laughed. And not a fake boardroom chuckle but a real sound that changed his whole face from 'scary CEO' to 'dangerously hot man.'
My body noticed all of that in ways that broke several workplace rules.
But under the easy talk, something electric hummed beneath the surface, charging every glance and pause.
When Raphael finally said, "We should go," and signaled for the check, it wasn’t just practical.
It carried the kind of quiet command that made my thighs clench in response.
As we left the restaurant, the walk to his car felt like foreplay dressed up as transportation. Stephen's hand touched my lower back, guiding me around a puddle. Titus opened the back door, and suddenly I was sliding across leather seats that cost more than my car.
Stuck between two men who made my body forget about work rules.
The small space made everything worse. Stephen's cologne mixing with Titus's. The heat from both sides. The way my thigh pressed against Stephen's when Titus shifted.
My pulse went crazy like I was running instead of sitting in a fancy car trying not to explode.
"Good dinner," Stephen said, pulling out his phone casually. "Really felt like we bonded as a team."
"Definitely," I managed, proud my voice didn't crack.
"You know what else is interesting about team bonding?" He scrolled through his phone, and my danger alarm started screaming. "The things we learn about each other. Like shared interests."
"Stephen," Raphael warned from the driver's seat.
"What? I'm just saying, we all have more in common than we thought." He turned his phone toward me, and my blood turned to ice. "For example, did you know there's a whole Reddit community for working women with office crushes?"
Oh no. I don’t like where it is going...
"I saw something interesting there recently," Stephen interrupted, pulling out his phone.
His voice had shifted, still soft but with an edge that made my spine straighten, and my own blood turned arctic as I recognized the Reddit interface.
No. No no no no no.
"'Am I a slut for wanting to fuck three of my father's business partners who are much older than me?'" He read aloud, each word a nail in my professional coffin. "'Is it daddy issues?'"
"That's… That's a weird thing to randomly find," I managed, my voice climbing octaves.
"Is it?" Stephen turned the screen toward me. "Your grandmother called you Tinker Bell. We heard that charming story last week at dinner."
Fuck. Fuck.
Fuckity fuck fuck.
"And 444," Stephen read out loud, his voice dropping lower. "That's maybe your lucky number, right?"
"I don't know what you're talking about…"
The lie came out shaky, pathetic, totally obvious.
Stephen's golden retriever act vanished like smoke. What was left was sharper, hungrier, way more dangerous.
"The details are pretty specific, sweetheart. Three older men. Father’s business partners. Architects field…"
His hand found my thigh, grip firm enough to burn through fabric.
"Either there's another frustrated architect out there with your exact family trauma, or you've been having some very unprofessional thoughts about us. Ms. Freeman."
Behind me, Titus shifted, his hands settling on my waist with surprising gentleness.
"Breathe, Dakota," he said quietly, voice rougher than I'd ever heard it. "We're not angry."
"Not angry?" I squeaked. "You found my secret horny Reddit post and you're not angry?"
"Interested," Titus corrected, thumbs drawing circles that made thinking impossible. "Very, very… interested."
"Wait, hold up." My brain finally caught up with the panic. "How the fuck did you even find this? Do you guys just casually browse Reddit at your age? Is that a CEO hobby I don't know about?"
Stephen's laugh vibrated against my side. "Should we tell her, Raph?"
"Tell me what?" I twisted to look at Raphael in the rearview mirror. "What kind of internet stalker shit—"
"Your parents' dinner," Raphael interrupted, his eyes still locked on mine through the mirror. "We mentioned that."
My stomach dropped to another floor. "So?"
"So… I have a seven-year-old daughter who loves Disney."
His voice stayed steady, matter-of-fact, like he wasn't currently driving me to either safety or sexual destruction.
"Thought I'd Google Tinker Bell movies to watch with Lily this weekend."
The pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity.
"Oh my god…"
"Imagine my surprise," he continued, the hint of something dark in his tone, "when the search results included a very specific Reddit post. Username Tinkerbell444. Posted some weeks ago. Right after our first meeting."
"Fuck." I slumped between Stephen and Titus. "Fucking Google algorithm…"
"Here's what's going to happen," Stephen said, his mask completely gone now, replaced by something that made my body temperature spike. "We're going to give you a choice. Option one: Raphael drives you home right now. We delete this from our memories, never mention it again, and keep our work relationship like none of this happened."
"Option two?" My voice barely worked.
His grip on my thigh tightened, sliding higher on purpose.
"We take you to my house, and we show you exactly what heaven feels like with three men who've been fantasizing about you just as much as you've been fantasizing about us."
"You've been—" I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Did you think you were the only one affected?" Titus's voice rumbled against my ear. "You have no idea how many cold showers I've taken because of you."
"The way you bite your lip when you're concentrating," Stephen added. "How you curse under your breath when you think we can't hear. That little sound you make when you stretch—"
"Enough," Raphael commanded, but his voice was rough. "She needs to choose."
We were at a crossroads—literally and metaphorically.
"Dakota," Stephen whispered, lips brushing my ear. "What's it going to be? Safe and boring, or the best night of your life?"