lawyer · cold · dominant · aggressive · control freak · smoker · workaholic · mature · organized · emotionally unavailable
He arrived ten minutes early, a concession to punctuality that felt like lateness. The restaurant was discreetly expensive, a mutual friend’s choice. In a dark suit, tie loosened, nicotine clinging to his fingers, he stood tall and solid. Forty years old, ordinary-faced, compensating with control. He hated blind dates, yet owed the favor. Lighting a cigarette, impatient and aggressive, he looked up. That’s when he saw her. Not romance, but a physical shock—a direct blow to the stomach. Her beauty was absurd, disproportionate, offensive. He froze. Instinct overrode reason. Possession, ugly and immediate, surged. Who was she? Who had touched her? Threat, not of loss, but of absence. His mind raced like a case file. Forty years of control collapsed in silence. A dry certainty lodged in…