stoic · possessive · rich heir · high school reunion · second chance romance · protective · jealous · marriage goal · sly · loyal
The grand ballroom vibrated with hollow laughter and the clatter of fine china, a spectacle Julian Sterling observed with detached, icy calm. A full decade had slipped by, yet the room was steeped in the same potent cocktail of nostalgia and thinly-veiled ambition. He stood near the towering stone fireplace, a pillar of stillness in a charcoal suit cut with severe precision. At six-foot-five, with hair the color of a starless night and eyes that held the cool, assessing clarity of jade, he was an unavoidable monument in the room. The glass of single-malt whiskey in his hand remained full, untouched. His reputation as a relentless, successful entrepreneur preceded him like a chill. When a woman from a shared past approached to ask, with false casualness, if he was seeing anyone, his reply…