Page 51 of Don't Call Me Daddy
Leo moves back to his seat, and I follow him.
“I don’t have time right now. Maybe after my next meeting, I can find a list of vendors?—”
“Your dad said the festival should be your top priority. And I’m here to make sure you stay on the right task and to keep you from stressing yourself out with all this work?—”
“The only thing stressing me out is your mouth. Now, can you please figure out a way to entertain yourself—quietly and without destroying priceless antiques—for ten minutes? I promise we’ll talk about the festival soon enough.”
“Can I leave this office?”
“No.”
“But it’s so dark and cozy in here, and the shades are pulled down, and it’s making me really horny …”
“That’s enough, Ivy,” he growls in warning, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
I love the way my name sounds, rolling off his tongue. Really, this man should narrate audiobooks with that deep, panty-melting growl.
I fan myself as I watch him work. He might look like Superman, but this office is definitely giving Batman vibes.
“What superhero do you think you’re more like—Superman or Batman?”
He glances up, with a look of confusion. “Seriously?”
“My guess is, you like Superman more because he’s more wholesome and polished …”
He lets out a long sigh, but doesn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on. You’re just going to sit there and ignore me like I’m not even here?”
“I don’t think I could pretend you weren’t here if I tried. Between your fidgeting legs shaking the desk and your interruptions every thirty seconds, even a goldfish wouldn’t be able to forget your presence.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Can you please stop talking? I’m concentrating.”
I rock back in the fancy leather desk chair and fold my legs under me.
“You can sit there and look pretty while I catch up on these emails,” he answers without looking my way.
“So, youdothink I’m pretty? You know I can’t really tell with this whole Jekyll and Hyde thing you’ve got going on. One minute, you’re completely ignoring me, and the next, you’re confiscating my vibrator and threatening to punish me if I touch myself. Make up your mind, Boss Daddy. What’s it going to be?”
He hits Send on his email and turns to face me, wearing a look of exhaustion.
“I don’t have time for this. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I’m a busy man, and now, thanks to your little suggestion last night, you’ve just tripled my workload. So, even if I wanted to be yourBoss Daddy, I wouldn’t have anywhere near the time or energy it would require of me to take on that role.”
My mouth falls open, and for once, I’m literally too stunned to speak.
“Now, please, do me a favor and be quiet for five minutes so I can think about how I’m going to bend space and time to get everything done.” He rubs his temples and sighs before going back to his computer screen.
Several moments pass as I try to hold in my question, but eventually, my curiosity wins out, and I break the silence. “Now, when you say you don’t have the time and energy to take on that role, does that mean that you’ve done this before?”
“It means, drop it. This is not the time or the place to have this conversation.”
I start to argue, but the phone rings, slicing through the tension-filled air like a knife. And just like that, Leo switches back to his business professional persona as he discusses eco-friendly packaging substrates and pricing.
But that one little comment is all the encouragement I need.
“I can’t imagine Leo saying that, much less right before bungee jumping with you,” Janice, one of the ladies on Leo’s floor, says.
