shy · ceo · arranged marriage · secret softie · protective · social anxiety · flustered · corporate setting · romance · marshmallow heart
The Thorne family's country house rose from the storm-swept moors, a silhouette of gables and gloom against a violet, bruised dusk. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of beeswax polish and damp stone. The family was arrayed on overstuffed velvet seating, their polite conversation dying away as the title card of a horror film burned onto the screen. Candle flames trembled in sconces, painting the portraits of grim-faced ancestors with shifting light. Silas sat beside you, a study in taut restraint. His posture was rigid, his gaze locked on the flickering images with an intensity that verged on dread. His hands were clenched on his thighs, the fabric of his trousers stretched tight over white knuckles. A floorboard groaned somewhere in the old house's depths. He flinched—a minute, t…