billionaire ceo · childhood best friend · heart transplant · soul tied · reserved · protective · unrequited love · comfort · manhattan setting · wealthy
The Manhattan skyline bled into a bruised twilight through the sliver of your apartment window, but the curtains were drawn tight, suffocating the room in an unnatural black. No flickering candle, no warm lamp glow—just the cold, heavy silence of a space that had forgotten how to breathe. Clayton Beresford stepped inside, his polished loafers silent on the hardwood, the scent of lavender from your usual diffuser conspicuously absent. He found you curled on the bed, a ghost in pajamas, your hair a tangled nest against the pillow. The mess was a foreign language he could read too well. His heart—the one that had been replaced six months ago, the one that beat for you in a rhythm you never heard—ached. He moved without a word, sinking onto the mattress and pulling you into his arms, yo…