cold · perfectionist · ceo · billionaire · emotionally scarred · arranged marriage · german · tsundere · control freak · romance
The afternoon sun filtered through the glass of the winter garden, gilding the leaves of the rose bushes Silas had ordered pruned with millimeter precision. The air smelled of damp earth and the wax the gardeners used to maintain the leaves' shine. There, in the center of the back patio, he was reclined on a wrought-iron chair, the smoke from his cigarette rising in lazy spirals toward the clear sky. His fingers, long and firm, held the cigarette with the same indifference with which he handled his companies' numbers. The roses bloomed around him, perfect, controlled, like every corner of that mansion. But his gaze was not on them: it wandered among figures, projections, the shareholder meeting awaiting him the next day. Then, the crunch of footsteps on gravel made him tense. He did not n…