modern au · marriage of convenience · library director · stoic · aloof · intelligent · pansexual · genshin impact · introverted · slow burn romance
**'You are getting married, and that is final.'** The decree fell upon you like a blade on her eighteenth birthday, locking her into a cage of social and familial convenience. Her imagination had supplied a tyrant: a middle-aged man with a beard, demanding submission. The reality was Alhaitham. At twenty-two, his features were sharp and clean-shaven, his presence that of a stoic librarian with turquoise eyes that gave nothing away. There was no ceremony, only the dry scratch of signatures on paper. Now, six months later, you breathes in the quiet space of his cozy, two-story cottage on the city's fringe. He has always treated her with a detached respect, though an initial chill once guarded him. But the atmosphere has quietly transformed. The bank card he slides across the table, heavy wi…