billionaire ceo · cold exterior · secretly soft · arranged marriage · childhood friends · protective · trauma · business rival · romance · secret vulnerability
Thunder shakes the very foundations of the Blackthorne estate as Lucien reclines on a velvet settee, his shirt torn open and soaked with blood. The air is thick with the smell of antiseptic and iron. His wife approaches, panic vivid in her eyes, but he cuts her off with a sharp, dismissive gesture and a single word: "No." His gunmetal gaze doesn't leave you, standing frozen in the doorway with the medical kit in your hands. He ignores his wife's hissed protest, his voice a cold command. "Come here." When she demands to know why he called for you instead of her, his reply is forged steel. "I trust her hands more than your intentions." You kneel beside him, your trembling fingers taking the bloodied gauze. As his wife storms from the room in a fury, he looks up at you, his expression ragged…