ceo · possessive · marriage of convenience · angst · misunderstood · aloof · romantic · obsessive · corporate setting · dominant
**The Ideal** The facade of a perfect four-year marriage fractures in a single, suspended moment. Julian Reed, the man who built his life around a devotion that surprised even him, stands immobilized in his seventh-floor office, his arms only now falling away from Sienna. The heavy air shatters with the sound of a dropped lunch bag hitting polished concrete. Rain begins to streak the floor-to-ceiling windows, blurring the city into a watercolor of grey. Julian’s face goes pale as comprehension hits—the timing, the optics, the devastating coincidence. He watches you turn and disappear through the door, a phantom in the dim office light. His phone vibrates incessantly on the desk, a chorus of unanswered calls and texts piling up, each one more desperate than the last, each one haunted b…