If we were talking about any other woman, I’d be long gone by now. But this is Eliza Seymour, my stepdaughter, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever come across. Even though she went out with Derek, I haven’t been able to shake off the spell she has cast on me.

And that’s exactly why I’m in her office now, sitting across from her with a pile of documents as a wall between us. Even though my rule has always been to never mix business with pleasure, I can’t help myself. It seems that whenever I’m around Eliza, whatever rules I think to be in place always tend to vanish.

I have no idea where this is going, but hell, just being here with her … that’s more than I could’ve asked for, even if we’re just going over numbers.

“Most of it looks promising,” I tell her, pushing another stack of papers across the desk toward her. Despite her age and apparent lack of experience with the market, Eliza has a keen eye when it comes to detail, and it seems like she didn’t waste her time at Wharton. At 25, she’s better than most analysts I’ve come across during my career, and that shows in some of her investment options.

Besides, she also likes the investment options I’ve laid out for her, which means I might get the millions I need to see my company through the storm. It won’t take long for Illicit Pleasure quarter sales to be reflected in their profit margins and, once that happens, I’ll be back in the game. All I need to do is keep afloat while that doesn’t happen.

“I told you, I’m not a teenager,” she responds, but despite her words, there’s a soft smile on her lips.

“I never thought of you as one,” I respond in kind, reaching across the desk and grabbing her hand, squeezing it in mine. The touch of her skin makes me slightly dizzy, and I’m taken back to when my naked body pressed down on hers, my hard cock buried deep inside her tight pussy.

“I know,” she grins, narrowing her eyes and looking at me in that devilish way of hers. The way she looks right now makes all the memories I’m reliving right now become even more vivid, and I can’t help but tighten my grip on her hand. My eyes climb down from her face to take in the round swell of her breasts and, next thing I know, my cock has grown into a hard rod of steel. “The way you handled me before … I can’t stop thinking about it, you know?” she continues, turning her every word into a maddening cocktail of lust and desire.

“That makes two of us,” I reply, my voice growing heavy and loaded with anticipation. We’re alone now, and we only need to lock the door so we can have a bit of privacy. And God, I need her, I need to have her; I need to --

“What the fuck, Carter?” A loud voice breaks through the fog clouding my mind, and that after I heard the doors to Eliza’s office swing open abruptly. Reacting on sheer instinct, I let go of Eliza’s hand and go up to my feet in the blink of an eye, my hands already balled into fists and more than ready for some action.

“You fucked me over!” Derek growls, his fingers still curled tight around the handle of the door. This time he doesn’t even register Eliza’s presence; he’s simply looking at me, rage making the laugh-lines around his mouth turn into something mean and brutish. Yeah, he doesn’t look happy at all. Not that I’m surprised.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I fold my arms over my chest, tapping my foot against the floor and sighing heavily, acting as if I’m talking to a child throwing a tantrum.

“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about,” he continues in that angry tone of his, taking one step toward me, and gritting his teeth. “You dumped all that stock just so you could get back at me, don’t act like you didn’t do it!”

“I’m a businessman, and I do business. Is that too much for you to understand?” I try and keep my calm, uttering each and every word softly, and that just seems to make him even angrier.

“Don’t act all high and mighty, you fucking bastard! You did all that just because you couldn’t tolerate the fact that me and Eliza were together,” he hisses, and the cool smile I had on my face vanishes in a heartbeat. I tried hard to push all these thoughts from my mind, but now that Derek is throwing that at me…

I’m not a fool, you know? After Eliza and Derek left the bar at Emporio Armani, I know exactly what happened between the two of them. Derek would have never resisted someone like Eliza, and I know that she’s as attracted to him as she is to me, as much as it pains me to say it.

And do you know what’s the most fucked up thing about it? Every time I think of the two of them together, their lips locked and their bodies burning with lust, I… I get hard. I don’t know why that happens, but the truth is that whenever my imagination starts working, producing all that mental imagery, my cock gains a life of its own. And the thing is, I can’t stop myself from thinking about it.

Ever since Eliza ditched me and left with Derek, I haven’t been able to have a dreamless sleep. No, I see the two of them whenever I close my eyes, Derek’s cock hardening as they kiss, and then Eliza’s anxious fingers undressing him… And then I picture him on top of her, her legs spread wide as he guides his cock toward her sweet pussy and drives it deep inside of her…

Christ, I gotta stop thinking of that, or else I’ll become hard right now.

“How the hell did you manage to get through security?” Eliza finally says, her words like a sword cutting through the argument between Derek and I. She’s standing up now, her hands down on the desk as she looks at Derek with a menacing look. Even though she’s attracted to the two of us, she isn’t the kind of woman that will tolerate any kind of bullshit.

“I have people everywhere,” Derek answers flatly, but I notice that he wasn’t expecting Eliza to act that cold toward him. Right now, he’s figuring out what I discovered when she ditched me—Eliza is her own woman, and she’ll do whatever the hell she wants to. No man on Earth would be able to bend her to his will, and that includes Derek and I. And, if you ask me, that’s part of her charm.

“You won’t have people in my office for long,” she tells him in that cold tone of hers, and I have no doubt that, in just a matter of a few hours, she’ll figure out exactly which of her employees are on Derek’s payroll.

“I had to come here,” Derek continues, almost as if he’s apologizing for breaking into her office like he did. “Carter just couldn’t resist trying to fuck me over.”

“And what do I have to do with that?” she asks him, slowly walking around her desk. She then leans back, folding her arms over her chest and pressing her ass against the edge of the desk. I feel my heart skip a beat as I take in her delicious figure, the red dress she’s wearing hugging the curves of her body so perfectly that I feel lightheaded. For a fraction of a second, I even forget that Derek is here with us.

“Well, you don’t… I…” he stammers but then, perhaps remembering his anger from before, he turns his gaze toward me. “You simply couldn’t accept it, could you?” he whispers.

“Accept what, Derek?”

“You couldn’t accept that Eliza chose me over you. You couldn’t accept that she belongs to me now, and you had to go and have your petty revenge…” he continues, and I can’t help but raise one eyebrow at him and let out a chuckle.

“Eliza chose you? Please, Derek. Why would she choose you over me? Eliza’s mine.” This time it's my turn to lower my voice into a whisper, and the tension in the room is almost palpable.

“Shut the fuck up, the two of you!” Eliza says out of nowhere, stepping between the two of us. “I don’t belong to any of you,” she says, her words hitting me like a shotgun blast to the chest. But then a grin takes over her delicious lips and, as she looks from me to Derek, I know that she hasn’t finished speaking. Somehow, I know that her next words will change this game we’re playing.

“The two of you … you belong to me.”