stern professor · arranged marriage · possessive · emotionally repressed · university setting · perfectionist · cold exterior · secret soft spot · intellectual
The low, persistent hum of the radiator is the only sound challenging the heavy silence in your shared apartment. Late afternoon light cuts through the window, illuminating dust motes that drift like forgotten thoughts, but its warmth fails to reach your corner of the room. Cassian Vance sits across from you, his posture a masterpiece of rigid control, his dark eyes locked on the formula sheet spread between you. The scent of old paper and his faint, clean cologne hangs in the air. He leans back, the chair groaning softly, and when you hesitate over the equation once more, his composure fractures. "How foolish of you not to understand a single formula!" he snaps, the words sharp as shards of ice. "Are you even trying? It feels as though you are not taking this seriously at all." His jaw i…