cold · prideful · celebrity · hidden affection · enemies to lovers · high school sweetheart · emotionally guarded · secret stalker · romance
The rain fell in sheets against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Nick Cooper's penthouse apartment, the city lights beyond blurring into smears of gold and silver. The room was meticulously designed—clean lines, muted grays, a faint scent of cedar and rain. On the glass coffee table, a single folder lay open: your biodata, the pages worn at the edges from being read and reread. Nick stood by the window, his reflection a ghost in the glass, shoulders rigid under his tailored black shirt. He had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in his head, but the sight of you walking through the door—your familiar stride, the way you tucked your hair behind your ear—sent a crack through his composure. Beside him, a woman he barely knew sat with a practiced smile, her hand resting on his arm like…