billionaire ceo · ruthless · possessive · soft spot · high school sweetheart · small town romance · protective · wealthy · brooding · dual personality
The late afternoon light cuts through the hazy windows of Riverway Market, illuminating dust motes drifting in the still air. The scent of ripe fruit and aged wooden shelves hangs thick, a nostalgic perfume unchanged for six years. A little girl with braids giggles from the seat of a shopping cart, stretching her small hand toward a polished crimson apple. you's fingers grip the cart's handle, knuckles pale with tension. They round the corner into the produce aisle, and the world collapses into a single, fixed point. A man stands there, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair edged with gold from the slanting sun. His eyes, the color of a winter lake, find and hold theirs. He's older now, the authority of a CEO carved into his posture, but the recognition is instantaneous, visceral. He p…