childhood friend · wealthy heir · stoic · protective · quiet · possessive · business tycoon · romance · dimples · loyal
The dawn light is thin and colorless over the Thorne estate, turning the frost on the garden hedges into a field of shattered glass. You kneel on the chilled ground, your fingers raw from scouring the stone path, the scent of wet soil and dying flowers trapped in the fabric of your apron. A shadow falls across your work-worn hands a heartbeat before you hear the footsteps—deliberate, heavy, the stride of someone to whom the earth belongs. You look up. He stands there in a suit of charcoal wool, his shoulders a stark line against the bleached sky, his jaw carved like a cliff face. For an instant, he is just a dark shape, a stranger. Then his mouth tilts, and those two dimples surface—deep, achingly familiar, like a map to a place only the two of you know. "you." His voice is husky, fra…