Strictly Professional, Mr. Daddy by itsvlada
Strictly Professional, Mr. Daddy
Description
Five years ago, Elise Garnier made a mistake. One masked stranger. One unforgettable night. One secret she's been running from ever since. Now she's back in Paris, desperate and out of options. Her daughter is sick, the medical bills are crushing, and she needs money-fast. So when Veridian Group offers the highest executive assistant salary in the city, she takes it. Even though Veridian is connected to the scandal that destroyed her career. Even though working there means risking everything she's been hiding. She convinces herself she'll never cross paths with the CEO. That she can stay invisible. That she's safe. She's wrong.
Chapter 1
Feb 27, 2026
Elise’s POV
Morning rain turned La Défense into a maze of wet glass and fractured reflections. I crossed the plaza toward Veridian Group's headquarters, each step a countdown to either salvation or disaster.
Pale blouse. Sensible heels. Hair pulled into a ponytail so tight my scalp ached.
The uniform of invisibility.
You cannot afford to fail. The words looped through my skull with every breath. Amélie needs you to succeed.
My daughter's treatments in Switzerland cost €8,000 per month and I'd spent three weeks applying to every major corporation in Paris. BNP Paribas offered €65,000 annually, L'Oréal matched it, LVMH came close.
Veridian's executive assistant position paid €85,000 plus performance bonuses. That extra twenty thousand meant three more months of treatment.
Three more months of keeping my daughter alive.
So here I was, walking back into the company connected to the foundation that had destroyed my life five years ago. The name Veridian used to wake me gasping in the middle of the night.
But desperate mothers don't get the luxury of fear.
The lobby was all chrome and marble, people moved through it in expensive suits. Security scanned my fingerprint and when the door clicked open I stepped through.
The HR woman appeared—immaculate suit, clipboard, a smile that never reached her eyes. "Madame Garnier? Follow me."
We moved through corridors that smelled of expensive air conditioning and ambition. Past workspaces where employees hunched over screens, faces lit blue, spines curved from hours of compliance.
The walls displayed monitors on an endless loop. ‘The Iris Project: Vision for a Safer Tomorrow.’
My chest tightened. That word.
Five years ago, I'd woken in hotel sheets with a silver tie pin shaped like an iris clutched in my palm. The stranger whose bed I'd shared at the masked ball in Musée des Arts Décoratifs had vanished.
Leaving only that pin, a memory of hands that knew exactly where to touch and me finding out about my pregnancy months later.
"Our flagship initiative," the HR woman said, gesturing at the screens with obvious pride. "Revolutionary surveillance technology."
I nodded. Kept my face neutral and continued walking. The elevator doors opened with a soft chime and I stepped inside, grateful for a moment to breathe.
Then the man entered.
Tall, with shoulders that suggested either expensive personal training or the kind of discipline that came from military precision. His suit was tailored to the millimeter, charcoal with subtle pinstripes.
The space contracted around his presence. I know him, Alan Delaunay. The CEO.
The photographs in my briefing packet had been sanitized corporate headshots. But they hadn't captured the sharp line of his jaw, or the way he held absolute stillness in his body. The kind of controlled power that made the air feel heavier.
He turned and his eyes landed on me with precision that made my pulse stutter.
"Madame Élise Garnier I assume?” His voice hit me in the solar plexus.
Low and precise, each syllable shaped with that particular Parisian elegance that turned ordinary words into something weighted. Something about the timbre made my skin prickle with recognition I couldn't place.
My throat went tight. "Yes, Monsieur Delaunay."
His gaze remained on me three seconds too long and I forced myself to hold eye contact.
His cologne reached me then—cedar and something darker underneath, bergamot maybe. With a base note that pulled at something in my memory.
Expensive and distinctive. Wrong and familiar at the same time.
He turned back to face the elevator doors without another word. The silence pressed against my ribcage. I became aware of my own breathing, of the small space we occupied, of how his presence seemed to fill it entirely without him moving a muscle.
The doors opened on the thirty-second floor and he stepped out without looking back. I exhaled then, realized I'd been holding my breath the entire time.
The day became a gauntlet, my boss kept me running with demands that bordered on impossible. Back-to-back meeting schedules that violated the basic laws of time and space, a fifty-page merger document to format in under an hour.
Even a reservation at Le Cinq for tonight when they'd been booked solid for three months.
I completed every task. Stayed calm. Stayed efficient.
Do it for Amélie. Just survive this. Get the paycheck. Keep her alive.
But I felt his attention on me throughout the day. When I brought him coffee—espresso, no sugar, exactly as his previous assistant had noted in the files. When I delivered documents that somehow needed to be flawless five minutes before he'd requested them.
He barely spoke. Just watched with dark eyes that analyzed everything.
Around 4 PM, while I was organizing contracts in his office, he spoke without looking up from his screen. "You've worked in foundations before."
Not a question. A statement.
I turned slowly. "Yes. Event coordination. Several years ago."
"Which foundation?"
My pulse kicked. "Cléry. But I left in early 2020, before the scandal became public."
His fingers stilled on the keyboard. "Interesting timing."
"I had personal reasons to leave Paris, Monsieur." I kept my voice level, professional. "The scandal that emerged later proved my timing was fortunate."
"Personal reasons." He looked up then, and the weight of his scrutiny made my skin feel too tight. "And now you're back. Working for the company that was implicated in your former employer's industrial espionage."
The words hung in the air between us.
A challenge. An accusation wrapped in observation.
"I'm back because Veridian offers competitive compensation." I held his gaze. "My personal circumstances require the salary you're offering."
Something flickered in his expression. Interest or suspicion, I couldn't read which.
"We'll see if you're worth it," he said, and returned to his screen.
Dismissed.
By 8 PM, most of the office had emptied. I stared at the stack of files, at hours of work ahead. But only an hour later, deep in financial projections, I heard his voice. Low. Controlled. Coming from his office.
My stomach contracted at his words.
"Background check," Alan said into his phone. His back was to the glass walls, but I could hear every word through the expensive silence. "Élise Garnier. Employment history, personal connections, financials. Everything."
My fingers froze on the keyboard.
"Something doesn't add up." His voice sharpened with the kind of suspicion that ended careers. "She worked at Cléry Foundation right before the raid. Left Paris within days."
Oh God. Oh fuck.
"I want to know what she's hiding." A pause. "By morning. And be discreet."
The words detonated in my chest. My hands started trembling and the spreadsheet blurred. He was investigating me. Right now. While I sat here formatting his merger documents and pretending everything was fine.
I saved my work with shaking fingers, closed my laptop and gathered my things with movements I forced to stay calm and normal.
He was still on the phone, silhouette sharp against the window.
I made it to the elevator. Pressed the button. The doors opened. As they closed, sealing me into that small metal box, one thought consumed everything else.
He suspected. He was digging. And by morning, he'd know about everything I'd been running from for five years.
Amélie's face flashed through my mind. Her smile. Her laugh. The way she reached for me every morning.
I'd come back to Paris to save her.
Instead, I'd walked straight back into the one place that could destroy us both.
Strictly Professional, Mr. Daddy
30 Chapters
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