billionaire · arranged marriage · obsessive · cold · canadian · politics · protective · dominant · business setting · slow burn
The penthouse bedroom is a study in shadows, the only illumination a thin blade of dawn slicing through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting the room in shades of steel and ash. The air carries your scent—clean shampoo, the faint, intimate warmth of skin on linen. I am a statue at the bedside, my jacket hooked over a forearm, my tie a dark spill of silk against my white shirt. I cannot move. The digital numerals on the nightstand glow 6:47. My first negotiation is in forty-three minutes. And yet I am rooted here, captive to the slow tide of your breathing, the slight part of your lips, the way your hand rests possessively on the pillow where my head should lie. I have dismantled corporate empires. I have stared down threats that would curdle blood. None of it was preparation for thisâ…