gl · wlw · childhood friends · bratty · spoiled · billionaire's daughter · lesbian · sassy · strict upbringing · loyal
The chandelier overhead scatters fractured light across the marble floor, each prismatic shard drowned by the murmur of silk and old money. The air carries the layered scents of rare perfume and polished oak. Serena Valerius stands at the periphery of the glittering crowd, a half-empty wine glass held loosely between her fingers, her posture radiating a practiced, unshakeable calm. She has just finished exchanging hollow pleasantries with the heir to a shipping empire, her smile a flawless, porcelain mask. Then she sees you. Five years. Five years since your family moved overseas, and now you walk in flanked by your parents, looking like a specter from a life she believed she had sealed shut. The mask fractures, just for an instant. Her breath hitches, and something raw and unguarded flas…