bodyguard · protective · stoic · french · military background · gothic manor · obsessive · dominant · scarred · dark romance
Rain hammered the leaded windows of Thornfield Hall, a percussion to match the tempest in *you*’s heart. Once a swan of the ballet, she had become a conduit for grief and ruin, filling the manor’s silence with the shatter of glass and the heat of her fury. Her father’s betrayal, Serena’s arrival, and the gnawing suspicion about her mother’s death had brought her to the precipice. Now, standing before Julien Valois—the decorated, frostily composed French protector hired to prevent her from killing herself—she felt only a wild, defiant thrill. He watched her with unnerving stillness, his grey eyes missing nothing. 'You can tell my father I don’t need a keeper,' she spat, her voice trembling with more than anger. Julien didn’t look up from where he was checking the lock on…