Page 59 of Forbidden Daddy
"I said I’m not?—"
"I heard what you said." I moved to the cabinet and pulled out two plates, my movements deliberate. "I also see a man who’s been carrying the weight of an empire all day and probably hasn’t eaten since this morning."
He turned, those piercing blue eyes studying my face like he was seeing me for the first time. For a moment, I thought he might argue. Might retreat to his office or the gym or whatever dark corner he went to when the violence of his world became too much.
Instead, he set down his glass and slumped into one of the bar stools behind the kitchen island.
I served him without commentary, setting the plate in front of him along with a fork. The shepherd’s pie was perfect—golden brown on top, the meat and vegetables underneath still steaming. Comfort food at its finest.
Roman stared at it for a long moment, then picked up the fork.
We ate in silence. He barely touched the food at first, just pushed it around his plate while I pretended not to watch him. But gradually, his shoulders began to relax. His breathing deepened. Some of the terrible tension that had been radiating off him started to ease.
"This is good," he said finally, his voice still rough but more present.
"Believe it or not, it was my grandmother’s recipe. She taught me to make it when I was ten." I took a small bite, my stomach still sensitive from the pregnancy hormones. "Said every woman should know how to feed the people she loves."
The word hung between us—love. I hadn’t meant to say it, but it was too late to take it back. Roman’s fork paused halfway to his mouth, and I felt heat creep up my neck.
"Smart woman," he said quietly, then continued eating.
Relief flooded through me. He wasn’t running from the implication, wasn’t building walls. Maybe he was too exhausted for his usual defenses.
After dinner, I led him to the sitting room, where a fire crackled in the massive stone fireplace. Roman settled into one of the leather chairs with another whiskey, and I curled up on the opposite end of the sofa, close enough to reach him but giving him space to breathe.
The silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind of quiet that came from two people who didn’t need words to understand each other.
"Loyalty," Roman said suddenly, his voice cutting through the soft crackle of flames. "My father taught me it was everything. The only currency that mattered in our world."
I waited, sensing he needed to talk but wouldn’t respond well to pushing.
"He was wrong." Roman’s laugh was bitter, hollow. "Loyalty is just another word for leverage. For control. People stay loyal as long as it serves their interests."
"Not everyone," I said softly.
His blue eyes found mine across the space between us. "Everyone, Cassie. Eventually. Given the right pressure, the right incentive, everyone breaks."
The pain in his voice made my chest ache. This was about more than just business, more than just the mole in his organization. This was about a lifetime of betrayals, starting with a mother who’d tried to have his father killed and continuing through every person who’d ever sworn loyalty to the Creed name.
"Trust became a liability," he continued, staring into the fire. "Every time I let someone close, every time I believed their promises, I ended up with a knife in my back. So I stopped trusting. Stopped believing. Built walls so high that nothing could get through."
"But something did," I said, understanding flooding through me. "Something got through anyway."
He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something vulnerable flicker across his features before he controlled it.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Something did."
The admission hung between us like a bridge neither of us was sure we should cross. I thought about my own experiences with betrayal, with the way trust could be shattered in an instant.
"My mother left when I was eight," I said, the words coming out before I could stop them. "Just packed her bags one day and walked out. No explanation, no goodbye. Just gone."
Roman’s attention sharpened, but he didn’t interrupt.
"I found out later it was because my father had been cheating on her. For years, apparently. With multiple women. She said she couldn’t trust him anymore, couldn’t live with someone who made promises he had no intention of keeping."
I pulled my knees up to my chest, remembering the confusion and abandonment of that day. "But she didn’t just leave him. She left me, too. Her eight-year-old daughter, who’d never broken a promise to anyone."
"That’s not the same thing," Roman said, his voice rough with something that might have been anger on my behalf.
