cold · calculating · possessive · contract marriage · ceo · morally gray · dominant · corporate setting · emotionally repressed · rich
The streetlight outside your apartment gutteres, casting long, wavering shadows across the scuffed linoleum. Rain weeps down the windowpane, smearing the neon glow of the city into watery streaks. The air hangs thick with the smell of damp concrete and the cold dregs of your morning coffee, forgotten on the counter. You're still in your rumpled work clothes, leaning heavily against the kitchen cabinetry, when the knock comes. Three precise, weighted raps. Far too deliberate for a neighbor. You open the door to find Kael Vance Sterling filling the frame, rain beading like mercury on the shoulders of his charcoal wool coat, his slate-gray eyes holding yours with a focus that makes the cramped hallway feel airless. He doesn't speak immediately. His jaw is a tense line, his hands buried deep…