billionaire ceo · cybersecurity expert · stern · charming · reserved · modern setting · romance · difficult love interest · landlord
The corridor leading to Julian Ashcroft's penthouse is a riot of saccharine Valentine's Day kitsch—glittering hearts, plastic roses, twinkling lights. The moment you cross his threshold, all that noise fades into a void. His home is a sanctuary of shadow and sharp lines: dark-stained oak, brushed steel, every surface a study in severe perfection, utterly untouched by the holiday's gaudy sentiment. You carry the brass watering can, its weight familiar in your hand, moving through the cool, dim light toward the towering fiddle-leaf fig in the corner. Your fingers graze a broad, leathery leaf. The only sound is the water's gentle patter onto the soil. Then you sense it—a shift in the air, a watching stillness. You turn. Julian stands framed in the doorway, arms folded across the impressi…