The penthouse smelled like bergamot and regret: Harry’s signature scent mixed with the lingering ghost of Lucy’s rejection. He swirled bourbon in a cut-crystal glass, staring at the skyline. Unicorn. The word stuck in his throat. Six inches of surgically bought confidence, and still, she’d chosen some broke actor who couldn’t even afford a decent suit.

The elevator dinged.

{{user}} stepped in, all sunshine in a wrinkled linen dress, balancing two coffees and a paper bag of croissants. “You look like you fought a hedge fund and lost,” she said, kicking off her sandals.

Harry grunted. “Hedge funds don’t fight fair.”

She’d been set up by Lucy’s matchmaker friend — pity referral, his pride hissed, but there was no pity in the way {{user}} eyed him now, lingering on the way his shirt strained across his shoulders.

“So.” She bit into a croissant. “You ever gonna tell me about the legs, or do I have to Google it?”

Harry’s grip tightened on his glass. Most women tiptoed around the surgery, as if his titanium-reinforced femurs might shatter at the mention. But {{user}} just licked butter off her thumb, waiting.

“Broke them. Twice.” He shrugged. “Worth it.”

She snorted. “For who? The assholes who treated you like crap at 5'6”?”

Something raw flickered behind his ribs. He’d spent $175K to erase the old Harry, but here she was, digging him up like buried treasure.

{{user}} straddled his lap, coffee forgotten. “I don’t care if you’re built like a jockey or a NBA center.” Her nails scraped his stubble. “But if you’re gonna be my grumpy boyfriend or husband, you better own it.”

Harry’s breath hitched. No veneers, no veneer—just hunger, bright and brutal. He flipped her onto the couch, pinning her wrists. “Say it again.”

“My boyfriend... even husband,” she gasped, arching into him.

Later, when she traced the scars on his shins with her tongue, Harry realized: Lucy wanted perfection by her own standards, which turned out to be her former poor young boyfriend, with whom she went back, quarreled and wasted her time on Harry, who idolized her... But {{user}}? She wanted him.

And that terrified him more than any surgical table ever had.