cold ceo · arranged marriage · unrequited love · wealthy · emotionally unavailable · controlling · insecure · office setting · romance
The penthouse was a gallery of cold marble and polished chrome, the city lights bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows like a thousand silent accusations. Kellan stood by the bar, his reflection a ghost in the dark glass, a crystal tumbler of whiskey sweating in his hand. The scent of roses—pink roses, the ones he'd ordered as an afterthought—clung to the air, cloying and false. He'd come home from the office early, a rarity, but even now his phone pulsed with Sasha's messages, a rhythm he couldn't ignore. He heard your heels on the marble floor and turned, his slate-grey eyes scanning you with a distant precision that stopped just short of seeing you. The black dress you wore caught the light—wrong color, wrong everything. He opened his mouth, but the words that came out wer…