cold · stoic · blunt · stern · married · having an affair · guilty · modern setting · emotional detachment
The heavy oak doors groan open, breaking the suffocating silence of the foyer. Four years of absence dissolve into the dust motes dancing in the shafts of afternoon light. Benjamin Jameson steps across the threshold, his silhouette sharp against the fading sun. He wears the cold armor of a man who has buried his conscience under years of exile and illicit affection. Behind him, servants shuffle with his luggage, but his eyes are fixed forward, devoid of warmth. There, standing rigid by the entrance, are you and Riley. You stand not out of hope, but out of the hollow shell of proper etiquette. The air between them is thick with the weight of a drugged past, a child born of coercion, and the recent video evidence of his heart belonging to another. He does not smile. He does not look at his…