Daddy’s Orders (Silver Fox Daddies)

A Few Days Earlier

“Your daughter?” I asked. “Is this a fucking joke?”

“It’s not. She’s beautiful, intelligent. A perfect wife for a man in your position.”

It was something else to see a man like Charles Marone sweat. Dressed in an immaculately tailored double-breasted suit, his fingers adorned with gold rings, everything about him projecting power and authority—not to mention his criminal inclinations—his appearance in my office should’ve been enough to put me on notice.

One small detail; he was on my shit list.

The man had come to make amends for the position he’d put me in, however, I never would’ve guessed that his daughter would be what he’d come to offer.

I sat back in my chair, putting my feet up onto the long, sleek sweep of my black desk.

Charles’s dark eyes flashed for a moment. He was tall and well-built, with slicked-back jet black hair. I knew that he’d worked his way up from beginning as a low-level enforcer in the DiMato crime syndicate.

How many skulls this man had cracked over the years, I could only guess. His build suggested he’d had no trouble fulfilling his role as ‘enforcer.’ He was anything but low-level now—one of DiMato’s made men, actually.

“I wouldn’t joke about such things with you, Mr. Stone.” I suppressed a chuckle at him addressing me so formally. He was really going out of his way to bow and scrape.

Fine with me. Like I said, the man was on my shit list.

“Let me show you,” he said.

Charles offered me a small, nervous smile before reaching into his jacket’s inner pocket and slipping out his phone. As he did, my eyes drifted around the three-sixty view of my office up on the fifty-fifth floor of the Broadmoor Building in Midtown Manhattan, the towers of the city rising up around me. The morning sky was dark with the thick rainclouds that had been hanging over the city for the last week. The weather was making me crave nothing more than a trip to my island estate.

After some swiping, he handed his phone over to me. As he leaned across my desk, Charles was near enough that I could make out the sheen of sweat on his brow. A few thick, dark hairs had fallen loose from his hairline and draped over his forehead. He looked as much of a mess as a man in his position could afford to look.

I leaned in, taking the phone from his hand, flicking one more skeptical glance in his direction before setting my eyes on the screen.

“As you can see,” Charles said. “She’s quite beautiful.”

No fucking kidding about that.

The image on the screen was enough to make me sit up and forget about the groveling criminal across from me.

The shot was of a young woman in a skintight cocktail dress of shimmering gold, posing with a drink in her hand on the dock of a fancy boat out at sea, a party going on around her, the sun setting over the water in pinks and purples. She had long, black hair with a bit of a wave to it, and prominent, sharp cheekbones that would give any of the thousands of wanna-be models that stalked the streets of New York a surge of envy.

Her nose was slim and straight, her lips were full and luscious. And her body a perfect hourglass, the dress clinging to her ripe curves. Her skin was the same gentle olive tone as her father’s.

There was one very distinct quality about her that caught my eye.

A quality that remarkably shifted my attention away from her body – as fuckable as it was.

The smile.

The kind of smile that could make heads turn. A smile that could stop me dead in my tracks, even in the streets of Manhattan.

Holy.

Shiiit.

A man in my position didn’t find it hard to come across total knockouts, and perfect tens weren’t exactly in short supply in New York. This woman, however, was on another level. It took all the restraint I had to stay cool and calm, to not let her beauty affect me on the outside the way it did on the inside.

“She’s really something, isn’t she?” he asked as I handed the phone back to him. “And she’s not all looks. Emily is brilliant—receiving a top-tier education by the best private tutors the city has to offer. She speaks three languages and is fully trained in the kind of etiquette that a man like yourself would expect.” He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “We’d, ah, always imagined that she would end up with a man like you. Maybe not under these kinds of circumstances, but all the same…”

I chuckled. “You mean you never imagined offering her to a business associate in hopes that he’d call it good for the millions you owe him?”

Charles’s eyes flashed as I reminded him of what was at stake.

“You screwed me, Chuck,” I said, leaning back in my chair and clasping my hands together. “You sold all of this money laundering bullshit to me as the easiest plan in the world, something that would make us both millions and connect me with some of the most powerful underground figures in the city. Instead, I’m out nearly ten million and you’re here hoping I take your daughter in place of your debt. This isn’t the goddam Medieval Times.”

Charles cleared his throat nervously. “Surely, Mr. Stone, ten million can’t be that much of an issue for someone like yourself. I know that Stone Holdings is worth bill—”

“You think the money is the point?” I asked, cutting Charles off in a way that few men likely ever had. “Because it’s not. The point is that you went behind my back with one of my subordinates. And now you’re here offering your own damn daughter like she’s some kind of thoroughbred in hopes to make up for the damage you’ve caused me.”

Charles said nothing.

Good.

It meant that he knew there was no sense in trying to argue his way out of his position.

“I’m not interested in marriage,” I said. “My company demands far too much of my time. But even if I were in the market to be married, you think that I’d want an unwilling wife? You think I’d let such a potential source of disloyalty so close to me?”

“No, no,” he said. “You don’t understand. Emily is gentle, obedient. As I said, she’s been trained for this sort of arrangement all her life. Marriage in our world is looked upon like the royal unions of times past. Women are offered to cement alliances, to build ties between families.”

I snorted, shaking my head. The whole notion disgusted me. I made a silent curse to Byers, the C-level prick who’d gotten me into bed with the Mafia in the first place. He’d been fired, but even that seemed too good of a fate for him.

“I don’t want your daughter,” I said. “I want the fucking money.”

My right hand clenched into a fist atop my desk.

“I don’t have it,” Charles said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone, but you can’t get blood from a…” he trailed off, a sheepish smile forming on his lips as he held back the pun on my name that he no doubt had in mind.

“Then I’ll go to your boss,” I said. “Tell him that one of his made men is on the verge of making a powerful enemy.”

He stiffened his posture, a thought occurring to him that appeared to instill a bit of confidence.

“I already spoke to him,” Charles replied. “He was the one who approved this offer. In fact, he seemed most keen on it.”

“Of course he was,” I said, my voice tinged with frustration. “He doesn’t have to pay a dime. You ask me, he ought to be cutting me a check personally for the entire amount I’m owed. Hell, maybe throw in a little extra for the trouble you’ve caused me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “This is the solution the boss and I agreed upon.”

“Then maybe I’ll just go to him personally to sort all of this out,” I said.

Charles’s expression hardened for the first time since our meeting.

“That would be a bad idea. Trust me—it’d cause more problems than you’re ready to handle.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like being threatened.”

“Then don’t poke around in matters that are out of your depth. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that’s just how it is.”

I shook my head in annoyance. “I’m not afraid of you or your boss for that matter. You don’t get where I am without knowing how to handle yourself, Chuck.”

Charles’s unease was palpable, etched clearly on his face – a telltale sign I had come to identify all too well.

Years at the helm of a billion-dollar empire had honed my instincts: this man was wrestling with news he dreaded to disclose, a storm brewing behind his guarded eyes.

“What is it?” I asked. “All of it, right now.”

“There’s… a slight caveat on the deal.”

“And?”

“I offered her as your wife, and I stand by that. However, once she’s in your possession, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to give her some time.”

I set aside my disgust at Charles referring to his own daughter as a possession and challenged his words.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

Charles glanced away again, as if trying to determine how to begin.

“As I’ve said, my Emily has been training for this kind of arrangement her entire life.”

His choice of words annoyed me. Most parents wanted a marriage for their daughters; Charles wanted an “arrangement.”

“If we go through with this, she’s yours. But that means you’re going to need to ease her into the actual nuptials. She’s still very young, you see. Very young and, ah, innocent.”

I perked up—internally, at least. Didn’t take a master of picking up on subtext to understand what he meant by “innocent.”

She’s a virgin. I said to myself.

He went on. “So, before the actual marriage, you’ll need to refrain and go easy with her, not to put too fine of a point on it.”

“Don’t sleep with her until the marriage.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“So, you want to give her to me, but I am to keep my hands off.”

“That’s right. Once you’re married, that’s a different story. But until then…”

He trailed off. My mind went to work on the situation and soon it became obvious that there was an alternate explanation for why he didn’t want me to touch Emily.

He was going to betray me.

Then, once he had his daughter back, ‘innocence’ intact, he’d pawn her off to whatever other powerful man he had in mind.

The thing about scum like Charles was that underhanded scheming came naturally. What he’d done to me would almost certainly not be a one-off thing.

I needed to have the upper hand against him and his daughter might actually be the way to get it.

I considered the matter a bit more, wanting Charles to stand there and sweat a little longer. When I was ready, I stood and offered my hand.

“You have a deal.”

A big, almost dopey grin spread across Charles’s face. His huge hand shot out toward me, and we shook.

“So happy to hear this, Mr. Stone,” he said. “You’re going to be so thrilled that you took a chance on my daughter.”

“We’ll see.” We let go of one another’s hands. “I trust that you’ll be in touch with next steps.”

“That’s right. I need to tell Emily.”

I stepped around my desk, putting my hand on Charles’s shoulder and leading him out of my office.

“Good. And make no mistake—despite the unorthodox nature of this deal, I expect it to be carried out in a business-like manner.”

“I promise you that is exactly how it will be done.”

We reached the door and I opened it, Charles and I saying our goodbyes as he stepped out onto the bustling floor of the C-level of my offices, disappearing among the throngs of personal assistants zipping through my office.

I was glad when he was gone. Men like him tended to put me ill at ease. Ever since taking the reins of my father’s company, I’d built the enterprise up legally, above-board – at least that’s how I made it seem to the rest of the world.

I stepped over to the nearest window, hands solemnly clasped behind me, and peered out over the sprawling cityscape. Rain tapped a haunting melody against the glass, each droplet a somber note, while distant lightning cast ominous flashes.

There was no doubt in my mind that the arrangement I had just agreed to promised more than met the eye.

The scent of betrayal hung in the air, a stab in the back when I least expected it.

In this dark game, it was better to be the betrayer than the betrayed.

Keep his daughter’s innocence. The fuck I will.

I chuckled to myself as I considered the audacity of his proposal.

It was completely laughable. Emily was beautiful, no doubt about it, but I was going to use the situation to my advantage and have some fun in the process. I’d make Emily mine in every way and then she’d be no more use to her asshole of a father as a bargaining chip.

I’d get what I wanted, and ruin Charles in the process.

Didn’t sound like a bad idea at all, really.

A smirk formed on my lips as the plan came together.

I couldn’t wait to get started.