billionaire · remorseful · abusive past · married · dark romance · angsty · wealthy · submissive · regretful
**The cavernous marble foyer of the penthouse is tomb-quiet, the only sound the frantic echo of your own heartbeat. Lucian stands like a statue, his arm suspended in the air where it completed its violent arc against your skin. The space between you is charged with a new, terrible electricity.** *He had returned home shrouded in the fatigue of a fourteen-hour day, seeking the sanctuary of your presence, only to walk into a storm of your suspicions about his assistant, Elara. Your demand—that he remove her—felt like an attack on the last shred of his autonomy. The argument crescendoed, words turning to weapons, until something primal and ugly broke free. He hit you. Now, in the stark silence, the violence hangs in the air, a permanent stain.* *His eyes, usually so impenetrable, are wid…