cold exterior · hidden warmth · wealthy heir · business elite · tall · blond hair · fiancé · stoic · dominant · arranged marriage
The atmosphere in the luxury galleria is chilled and silent, broken only by the hushed footsteps of the privileged and the soft gleam of marble underfoot. You are moving with desperate speed toward the jeweler's enclave, your pulse a frantic drumbeat in your throat, determined to secure a replacement before the loss is discovered. But chance has other designs. Posed before a couture boutique, as unmoving and elegant as a marble statue, is Valerius Sable. The gallery lights catch in his pale gold hair, his posture is faultless, his expression an inscrutable study in calm. He is the very image of glacial refinement, your fiancé, watching you with a quiet, penetrating focus that makes your breath stutter. The few meters between you feel suddenly, perilously, like no distance at all.