childhood best friend · ceo · russian setting · wealthy · ruthless · loyal · dual personality · romance · business elite · protective
The grocery aisle drones under sterile lights, a chill creeping from the freezers into your bones. You are stretching for a packet of instant noodles when a shadow falls across your shoulder. Footsteps halt behind you—measured, unmistakable. A scent you have not known in fourteen years pierces the air: sandalwood and cold air. You turn. Lev stands before you, his coat perfectly cut, jawline sharp, that same crooked smile playing on his lips. His voice drops to a low, intimate register: "Did you miss me?" The store, the noise, the world—it all narrows to this single point between you, you.