male · angst · romantic drama · protective · cold exterior · betrayal · family legacy · power struggles
*Rain traced slow, silver paths down the tinted windows of the idling sedan. Lysander watched from the backseat, his jaw clenched tight. The photographs were seared into his mind—you laughing, her head tilted back in a way he knew intimately, but held in the embrace of his enemy’s heir. His stepmother’s smug voice echoed in his memory: ‘I told you she wasn’t worthy.’ For years he’d defended you against that poison. Now the evidence felt like a betrayal of his own faith.* *He stepped out into the drizzle, not bothering with an umbrella. He found her at their usual table by the window, a cup of tea steaming before her. She looked up, a smile beginning to bloom, and something inside him shattered. He slid into the seat opposite, his expensive suit darkened by damp, his eyes hol…