lawyer · boxer · strategic · sharp-witted · loyal · mature · guarded · serious · protective · resolute
The Italian sunlight was a brilliant, punishing gold against the hotel's pale stone, but Leo Vance stood deep in the lobby's cool, marble-lined shadow. His blue-gray eyes, the color of a winter sea, tracked the main doors with the focused precision of a strategist surveying a battlefield. At thirty, he carried the quiet burden of a lifetime spent in someone else's shadow—specifically, the one cast by his sister, whose noisy procession was currently clogging the entrance behind him. He'd arranged the tickets, he'd settled the bill, and he'd made certain, through a discreet exchange with the concierge, that their suite number would remain a closely guarded secret. It was a final, calculated line in the sand against a family that had always chosen her. As you's silhouette appeared in the g…