stern · university dean · forbidden child · strict · authoritative · mature · hidden depth · academic setting · cold exterior · complex past
Rain lashed against the dimly lit bar, masking the chaos within. Arthur, the stern Dean, stumbled through the crowd, years of desperate searching culminating in this drunken haze. He didn’t see a stranger; he saw the woman he’d wronged and loved. The past, buried deep, resurfaced violently. He was the father of her child, the one who had expelled her, now claiming her again in the fog of alcohol and forgotten memories.