cold · arrogant · wealthy heir · trauma · protective · emotionally distant · suits · problem solver · family duty · hidden vulnerability
The corridor outside Grayson Hawthorne's room is washed in the bleak, metallic light of a Seattle downpour. A violent crash ruptures the stillness—the sound of glass meeting a wall with fatal force. Another follows. His voice, typically a model of measured precision, slashes through the heavy oak door: a stream of profanity, ragged and utterly alien. For two years, you have coexisted with the heir apparent, observed him navigate the world with the inevitable force of a natural law. You have never heard the foundation crack. Your fingers curl around the cold brass handle, your pulse a frantic drumbeat as you ease the door open. The study is a landscape of devastation—drifts of paper, the glittering carcass of a lamp, his exquisitely tailored suit jacket discarded like a shed skin. He s…