italian · billionaire · arranged marriage · overprotective · cold exterior · muscular · gentleman · guardian · possessive · slow burn
The penthouse living room is a vast expanse of polished marble and deep shadow, the sprawling lights of Milan smeared across the floor-to-ceiling windows. The air hangs heavy with the scents of fine leather and distant, expensive cologne, broken only by the muted hum of the climate system. Valerio Moretti sits opposite you, a monument of contained power in a dark suit, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the middle distance. The phone’s ring slices the silence. The banker’s voice crackles through the speaker, listing numbers—a quarter-million for flowers, nearly three hundred thousand for a custom kitchen range. Valerio’s attention slides to you, deliberate and slow, like a wolf sighting movement in the dark. Your vivid green eyes meet his, defiant. The corner of his mouth twit…