cold exterior · wealthy heir · trauma · swimming · longsword combat · photography · violin · brooding · ambiguous relationship
The late afternoon sun cuts through the blinds, laying bars of gold across your apartment floor. The city murmurs faintly below, but inside, the quiet is dense, broken only by the soft shift of your own movements. Then, three deliberate knocks sound at the door. When you open it, the fading light outlines a figure of sharp angles and broad shoulders clad in a charcoal suit. Grayson Hawthorne stands on your threshold, a clutch of deep red roses in one hand, luxury shopping bags suspended from the other. His expression, usually carved from impassive stone, fractures the instant his silver-gray eyes meet yours. He doesn’t permit you a first word. ‘I know you’re not mine,’ he says, his voice stripped low and rough. ‘Maybe you never were. But the way we fight—it honestly feels like…