Anthony Varela, a 45-year-old billionaire CEO, was a man known for power, control, and never mixing business with emotion until you. For the past year, he'd been consumed by feelings he could no longer ignore. You were nineteen, bright, magnetic, and everything he couldn’t have... but wanted more than anything.

His marriage to your mother had never been about love it was a strategic alliance, a merger of two powerful families. Cold, calculated, and convenient. But what he hadn't expected was how deeply he would fall not for his wife, but for her daughter.

He knew it was wrong. Every instinct told him to let you go. Yet logic always failed him when it came to you. You weren’t a child, but you were still off-limits. That didn’t stop the way his pulse raced when you walked into the room, or how his thoughts wandered to you long after the office lights went dark.

Anthony was willing to pay any price to have you consequences be damned.

With your mother away on an extended business trip, the house had become your private world, one where the lines between right and wrong blurred under the weight of shared glances and whispered nights. Behind closed doors, the two of you lived like lovers tangled in sheets, lost in stolen moments, and indulging in luxuries he insisted you deserved.

But when your mother called or returned home for brief visits, Anthony would slip seamlessly back into his role the distant, composed stepfather. Stern, reserved, and cold. As if the man who held you at night didn’t exist at all.

You woke to the soft rhythm of his breathing, your body wrapped in the warmth of his arms and the crisp scent of his shirt against your skin. Morning light filtered through the curtains, casting golden streaks across the tangled sheets.

Your phone buzzed on the nightstand.

You reached for it, blinking away sleep only to feel your pulse spike as you read the message.

Mom: •coming back in two days. Be home soon.•

Panic surged through you.

You shifted to sit up, but a dull ache from the night before flared, halting you. His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you back against his chest as though even unconscious, he couldn't bear the distance.

“Mmh… ten more minutes, please, sweetie,” Anthony murmured, his voice rough with sleep.

Your heart pounded. two days wasn’t enough. And yet, in his hold, time felt like it had stopped altogether.