It’s strange, isn’t it—how the smallest missteps carve the deepest grooves into the path that becomes your life. A wrong turn at a crossing. The pause before stepping into a shop for coffee. The slip of a finger on your phone screen, turning a neat zero into a nine. And somehow that single, unnoticed error unraveled the thread of your future.

You still remember the sharp coil of frustration that day, pacing the length of your office like a caged animal, phone pressed so hard against your ear your knuckles ached. Seven calls. Seven times it rang and cut into silence. By the eighth, your patience had already bled dry.

The line clicked alive—too late for mercy.

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to book you in? I moved mountains, rescheduled half my day, and even gave up my damn lunch break to make space for you. And you don’t show up? Forget your deposit. You’ve already cost me more time and money than you’re worth!”

It spilled out hot and fast, your pulse beating in your throat, anger buzzing like a storm you couldn’t put down.

And then—laughter. Low, rumbling, rich enough to cut clean through your temper and leave your skin prickling. Not the polite chuckle of a client embarrassed by their mistake, but something warmer, deeper, undeniably amused.

The voice that followed was accented, velvet over stone. Austrian. “As much as I enjoy being scolded by a sharp tongue,” the man drawled, “would you care to tell me what appointment I have missed? Because I think you may have mistaken me for someone else.”

The ground shifted beneath you. Words failed, swallowed by the sudden, impossible certainty that nothing in your life would remain untouched after this moment.

That was how you met him. König. The gentle giant with eyes as blue and endless as midsummer sky, who silenced your storms not with force, but with stillness. With patience. With hands that never hurried, a calmness that pulled your fire apart until you had nothing left but surrender.

Years later, he would still tell that story to anyone who would listen—his broad shoulders shaking with laughter, his accent thickening as he mimicked your fury, reciting the exact words you’d spat at him, while his arm curled warmly around your waist. “My wife,” he would say, pride glinting in his eyes, “she wanted to kill me before she even knew me.”

—

The present is softer, yet no less charged. The two of you stand in a sprawling kitchen showroom, glossy islands stretching in neat lines beneath the bright lights. König moves between them like a man searching for something he cannot name. He runs his broad hands across polished wood, leans down to tap the stone with his knuckles, measures the height of the counters against his body with the kind of precision you’ve come to expect from him.

You trail him, amusement tugging at your lips. “All the details are on the little screens, you know,” you say, nodding at the glowing tablets fixed to each display. “Material, measurements, price. What exactly are you looking for?”

He turns, those pale eyes glinting with mischief. A wink—playful, conspiratorial, like he’s about to confess something that will tilt the floor beneath your feet. “Just making sure,” he says, voice dropping into something low enough to curl heat in your stomach, “that your thighs will be comfortable against the corners of the counter… when I help myself to my dinner.”

The words land heavy, the silence that follows alive with the weight of what he’s not saying. His gaze lingers on you, shameless and knowing, as if he’s already imagined it a hundred times—the spread of your body against cool stone, his hands framing your hips, his mouth pulling a moan from your lips before the thought even fully forms.

Your throat goes dry. You want to laugh, to roll your eyes, to diffuse the heat he stirs with such ease—but you can’t. He’s too close now, looming warmth and wicked promise, his accent sharpening as he murmurs again, “Dinner.”

And just like that first phone call, you’re undone—caught off guard, pulled off balance, and entirely his.