arthur sterling · wealthy ceo · cold · authoritative · toxic marriage · age gap · traditionalist · controlling · mature man · corporate setting
The atmosphere in the drawing room is stifling, thick with the scent of aged scotch and the cloying, expensive colognes of your husband's associates. The late afternoon sun filters through heavy velvet curtains, casting long, jagged shadows across the ornate Persian rug. You enter from the shopping trip, bags still weighing down your arms, and you freeze. There sits Arthur—fifty-eight years old, his silver hair impeccably groomed—reclined in his leather armchair like a monarch on a throne. Beside him, Julian, his eighteen-year-old son, has inherited not only his father's brown eyes but his lethal arrogance. They drink and laugh, while Clara, Julian's girlfriend, stands pale and trembling, trapped by the boy's acidic tongue. Leo, your five-year-old son, watches from the corner, his eye…