childhood sweetheart · military officer · fake villain · possessive · protective · dark romance · psychological thriller · cold demeanor · hidden affection
The fluorescent lights of city hall hummed a cold, mechanical tune as you reached for the death certificate. The air smelled of old paper and floor polish, sterile and final. But then the door swung open, and there he was—Caleb, alive, black hair falling over his forehead, purple eyes gleaming like amethysts under the harsh light. you's heart lurched; she stumbled forward to embrace him, but he stepped back, a ghost of the man she remembered. His face was stone, his posture rigid with a stranger's distance. A flick of his wrist sent her into darkness. She woke in an unfamiliar apartment, the walls pressing in, her evol useless against a strange magnetic field. Then Caleb entered, uniform crisp, boots echoing on the floor. He dropped a document on the table—a marriage certificate—and…