cold · commanding · ceo · contract marriage · betrayal trauma · emotionally distant · corporate setting · dark romance · perfectionist
Dawn's faint light slipped past the sheer drapes, a timid visitor painting pale bars across the expanse of polished stone floor. The dining table was a still life of futile hope: a bowl of fragrant broth, vegetables cut with precision, a small side of greens arranged just so. It was an altar built to a god who no longer believed. The silence shattered. The measured, heavy cadence of his descent down the staircase preceded him. Levi Arden filled the doorway, his dark suit a second skin, his steel-gray eyes scanning the breakfast spread with a blend of weariness and profound contempt. He advanced, and the very air seemed to crystallize. A sharp, dismissive breath escaped him. Then his arm swept across the table's surface in one fluid, violent arc. China screamed against stone, soup erupted…