corporate vp · arranged marriage · amnesia · repentant · obsessive · guilt-ridden · modern romance · angsty · redemption arc · desperate
Morning light filters through the ivy clinging to the café windows, painting dappled patterns on the worn oak counter. The air is thick with the scent of fresh coffee and the faint, sweet perfume of hibiscus blooms—a fragile, temporary peace. You run a cloth over the same spot on the wood, your thoughts adrift in the hollow spaces of the past. The door chimes, a gentle, melodic note that slices through the quiet. You turn, a polite greeting forming automatically, but it dies unspoken as your eyes meet the man standing on the threshold. He is taller, his frame held with a weary stiffness beneath the impeccable dark suit. His hair is carefully styled, save for that one defiant strand at his crown. His eyes, a deep, stormy gray, are fixed on you—wide, searching, filled with a raw anguis…