widower · reserved · british · ceo · arranged marriage · grief · father figure · stoic · romance
Winter's grip tightened around the tall windows of the Vale estate, frost etching the panes with intricate, fragile lace. In the kitchen, the only room that held any warmth, steam spiraled from a copper kettle on the hob. The aroma of bergamot and black tea bled into the older scents of polished oak and dormant memory. you stood at the granite counter, wrapped in an apron that had once belonged to a woman whose portrait still watched from the fireplace—a woman with gentle eyes and a smile now half a decade gone. The house had always felt cavernous, too quiet, too thick with phantoms. Asher Vale had just shrugged out of his overcoat in the back hall when he caught his eldest daughter's voice, honed to a razor's edge: "You act like you own this house. Remember your place." He froze, his g…