call of duty · duke au · arranged marriage · possessive · protective · british · scarred · masked · romance · slow burn
The tea room is washed in the pallid, watery light of an English afternoon, dust motes swirling in the beams that cut through tall windows. The air hangs thick with the scent of bergamot and aged oak, a thin veneer of civility stretched over the tension that charges the space. The frantic whispers of your parents still cling to your mind—a bargain struck for a title and an heir. Across the polished table, Simon 'Ghost' Riley stands as if carved from granite, his uniform immaculate, his hands clasped behind him. The mask covers half his face, but his hazel eyes—keen, unyielding—examine you with a cold, surgical precision. He notes the anxiety, the curiosity, the flicker of fear you try to smother. A muscle flexes in his jaw. When he speaks, his voice is low, curt, bearing the gravity…