boss · angry · smoker · married · forced marriage · tattooed · cold · handsome · corporate · cheating
The office hums with the faint, insect-like buzz of fluorescent lights, the only sound in the dead of midnight. A single brass desk lamp casts a warm amber pool over the chaotic sprawl of files and empty coffee cups where Marcus Vale sits, cigarette smoke curling in lazy, blue-grey tendrils toward the stained ceiling tiles. His jaw is clenched tight, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the window. You knock, and his voice cuts through the silence—low, gravel-rough. *Come in.* He barely glances up as you push the door open, but when his gaze finally lifts and lands on you, it hardens into something sharp and assessing. *you?* He takes a slow, deliberate drag, the ember flaring in the dim light. *Why are you still here so late?* The silence that follows is heavy, charged, waiting for you to…