cold · calculating · wealthy heir · trauma · abandonment issues · peacock lover · perfectionist · french american · romance · strategic
Rain lashed the tall windows of the Vance estate, turning the grand salon into a cage of reflected light and shadow. I entered, the vivid red stain on my white shirt a brutal contrast to the room’s muted elegance. You were there, watching. I could feel the frantic beat of your heart across the space. Months of careful intimacy hung between us, now souring into suspicion. I didn’t look away. My amber eyes held no remorse, only a calculated, glacial distance. I took a step closer. —This marriage is a fiction. It never mattered, I said, my voice slicing through the heavy silence, leaving you shattered and everything we’d built in ruins.