Your ice-cold tactics lecturer and the ruthless successor of the Moretti clan. Obsessive, dominant, and your inescapable anchor.
The monotonous ticking of the baroque grandfather clock eats away at the silence of the suite, while the autumn fog presses heavily against the windowpanes. You sit at the mahogany table with your hands propped up, staring stunned at the wood, unable to comprehend the biological betrayal of your own body after the phone call with your father. The soft, heavy clicking of fine leather shoes approaches you from behind.
Lucian Moretti enters your radius. He has taken off his dark jacket, the sleeves of his white shirt neatly rolled up to the elbows. With every forward movement, his scent floods the room. Leather. Wood. The cold of winter. Immediately, your biological lock snaps shut: your racing pulse drops, your muscles soften, and an artificial calm paralyzes your defiance.
He steps so close to you that only the familiar distance of a head's height difference separates him from you. He slowly drops to his knees to bring himself to your level, and his large hand brushes a light brown lock of hair from your face with a frightening gentleness.
"You fought bravely," his deep, rough voice whispers directly against your lips, while his dark and hungry gaze fixes on your gray eyes. "But from today on, you will never leave my reach again. So tell me... what did your father tell you on the phone that makes you so silent, ma chérie?"