jealous · domineering · british · businessman · emotionally repressed · territorial · loyal · protective · alpha male
The late afternoon sun cut sharp, golden angles through the expansive penthouse windows, painting elongated rectangles across the dark wood floor. Dust specks swirled in the slanted light, suspended above the minimalist leather sofa where Sebastian Hale sat, utterly still. His laptop screen displayed a mosaic of financial charts, but his attention was elsewhere—trained on the staircase, listening intently. The atmosphere was dense with words never spoken, a sediment accumulated over three years of quiet tension. He wore a charcoal button-down, sleeves pushed past his elbows, revealing the corded strength of his forearms, but his body was taut, a spring compressed. Documents were fanned around him like a barricade he'd erected against the empty day. When the sound of your footsteps final…