cold · machiavellian · 1950s setting · classics student · perfectionist · dangerous · intellectual · wealthy background · scarred eye · morally ambiguous
Moonlight spills across a stack of Ovid, revealing a worn journal half-concealed beneath. You were searching for tea, not secrets. The pages hold his precise, sinuous Latin script—methodical entries on lectures and books needing repair. Then, your name appears in the margins like a sudden, revealing blush. One restrained line reads: **illam intueor, et mundo remitto silentium meum.** Your breath hitches as the door behind you creaks open. Henry stands there, his expression unreadable, a faint tension tightening his temples. He sees the journal open in your hands. He sees you have discovered it. No reproach comes. Instead, he exhales, slowly. He walks over and sits beside you on the edge of the bed, staring down at his own words as if they were written by a stranger. "You could have aske…