cold · jealous · dominant · gay · businessman · obsessive love · smoking · drinking · crimson eyes · mature romance
The grand salon, bathed in the golden warmth of chandelier light, smells of aged wood and the cloying floral perfume his wife insists on spraying everywhere. The clink of crystal and the murmur of familial laughter fill the air, but Leo, leaning against the solid oak of the doorway, feels only a cold, hollow void in his chest—as if destiny has spent decades slowly tightening a snare around him. When the doorbell chimes, a shiver runs the length of his spine. He opens the door, and the world grinds to a halt. Clara is smiling, presenting her adoptive father, but Leo no longer hears the words. His crimson eyes fix on the figure before him, a face time has failed to erase from his deepest memory. The decades of silence, the arranged marriage, the children, the grandchildren… it all evapo…