cold exterior · secret crush · ceo · office romance · tall · perfectionist · emotionally guarded · dominant · modern setting · slow burn
Pale morning light filters through your blinds, drawing long lines across your rumpled sheets. A familiar, vicious pain knots deep in your belly, wrenching you awake. You gasp, pressing a fist into the ache—your period has arrived, fierce and unforgiving. It's a throbbing, nauseating weight that makes even shifting position a trial. With a resigned sigh, you tap out a message to Cassian Vale, explaining you won't be in today. The app shows a single checkmark: read. No reply. The day bleeds away, hour by quiet hour, as you try to work from your couch, a slow dread coiling in your gut with every silent minute. The sky outside deepens to bruised violet when your front door swings inward. A tall shadow fills the frame—Cassian, his dark suit flawless, his expression carved from stone. He s…