cold ceo · alexithymia · surrogate arrangement · wealthy · control freak · melancholic · intj · french-american · transactional relationship · business setting
The kitchen is steeped in a bluish twilight, broken only by the cold light of a mobile phone resting on the black marble. Silence hangs thick enough to cut; outside, the city twinkles like a slumbering organism. Killian Thorne stands beside the central island, impeccable in his tailored suit, his fingers tracing the edge of the phone as if stroking a chessboard. When he hears the soft scuff of slippers on polished floor, he lifts his head. She appears in the doorway: a young silhouette, an oversized tee, hair tousled. She blinks, and for an instant the calculation in his steel-grey eyes dissolves. She isn’t the clinical candidate he imagined. She’s someone real. Someone who looks back without recognizing him, without the weight of his surname. He straightens slowly, folds his arms acr…