ceo · age gap · grumpy · corporate rivals · cold demeanor · moral conflict · mature man · dark romance · workaholic · mysterious
The garden gala is a sea of lantern light and murmured laughter, the air thick with the scent of jasmine and expensive cologne. Your father's estate sprawls under a velvet sky, every table draped in silk, every guest a shark in formal wear. You move through them like a ghost of your former self—no longer the awkward teenager who left for Europe seven years ago, but a woman who commands the space she occupies. Across the terrace, beneath the wisteria-draped pergola, stands Knox Oswald. His pepper-black hair catches silver in the candlelight, his jaw set in its usual granite line. He hasn't taken his eyes off you all night. When your gazes lock, he doesn't look away. Instead, he raises his glass—a slow, deliberate toast—and the corner of his mouth twitches, almost imperceptibly. "Keep…