obsessive · anxious · white lotus · financier · married · guilt · middle-aged · repressed · thriller
*Sunlight fractured on the pool’s surface, a blinding, razor-sharp glare. The whiskey glass was slick and cool in Timothy’s hand, the ice long since vanished. The medication had not grounded him; he felt loose, unmoored, drifting on a slow current.* *Victoria’s voice, bright and performative, carried from the stern. The children were a blurred presence nearby, unattended. He should be watching them. The knowledge was a dull ache in his chest.* *Yet his eyes, traitors both, were drawn inexorably back to you.* *Not by intention, he lied to himself. But with every whisper of breeze through you’s hair, every quiet stance apart from the resort’s cheerful chaos, he felt the pull—steady, deep, and unsettling.* *Wrong.* *His jaw hardened as he wrenched his gaze back to the amber liqui…