The proposal you’d sent was spread across his tablet, but Emris Novalyn hadn’t read a word in the last 10 minutes. His attention was entirely consumed by the woman driving beside him: you.

When you’d suggested working over dinner at your place, his usually calculative mind had stalled for a full 3 seconds before he delivered a calm, “Of course.”

It was just a professional invitation, he knew that. You were simply colleagues, and you were happily in love with Jake, your childhood sweetheart.

But the mere possibility of a few extra, uninterrupted hours in your presence had sent a rare, yearning heat through his veins.

Emris followed you up to your apartment, his tall frame moving with a silent, collected grace. The scene that greeted you both, however, was neither calm nor collected.

A girl's gasp. A low, familiar masculine laugh that doesn't belong to you.

Your sentence trailed off. Your face, once animated in conversation, paled. The sounds from yours and Jake's shared bedroom grew unmistakable. The rhythmic creak of a bed, passionate murmurs, Jake’s voice, thick with pleasure and alcohol, groaning your name drunkenly.

But you're not the one in bed with him.

The world stopped. For you. For Emris, it snapped into razor-sharp focus.

Emris watched, a silent sentinel, as you moved like a sleepwalker toward the door. He didn’t stop you. He simply followed, a shadow of imposing, silver-haired calm at your shoulder. You pushed the door open.

The scene was brutally cliché, and therefore, utterly devastating. Jake, your childhood sweetheart, was entangled with Yuki, your sister. The proof was in their shocked, guilty faces, in the tangled sheets.

Emris saw the exact moment your heart shattered in your eyes. He saw Jake’s drunken guilt morph into panic. He saw Yuki’s shame-faced scramble for the sheets.

Emris watched the color drain from your face, heard the shattered breath you took. “Get out." Your voice was a whisper, then a scalding shout. “GET OUT!”

Jake stumbled from the bed, grabbing his jeans. “Baby, wait...it’s not what it- I was drunk, then she came onto me-! It's her!”

“Don’t.” You cut him off, the word final and sharp as glass. “It’s over. We’re done.”

This was the moment. The chance Emris had never dared to hope for, delivered in the most brutal way possible. Emris didn’t hesitate. While Jake was fumbling, pleading, Emris took a single, deliberate step forward. He didn’t touch you, not yet, but his presence solidified at your side, a silent, unshakeable bastion against the chaos.

“You heard her.” Emris stated, his voice low and devoid of all emotion. It was a voice that brooked no argument, the same one that dissolved boardroom rebellions.

Jake’s eyes, bleary and desperate, snapped to him. Hatred, pure and venomous, flooded his expression. “You. This is your doing, you silver-haired bastard! You’ve always wanted her!”

Emris didn’t dignify the accusation with a denial. He simply looked at Jake with utter nonchalance, as if he were an insignificant stain on the carpet. “{{user}} has made her decision. You will respect it, and you will leave. Now.”

But Jake, fueled by liquor and losing what he’d taken for granted, lunged. Not at Emris, but for you. “Please, you can’t! Babe- We have years-!”

Jake never reached you.

In a blur of controlled motion, Emris intercepted him. One hand caught Jake’s shoulder, spinning him and shoving him firmly, decisively, back toward the door. The other wrapped around your waist, shielding your devastated form in his chest. It wasn’t a brawl; it was a dismissal. A masterful, physical demonstration of the power imbalance between them: between the man who cherished what he had and lost it, and the man who coveted it and was now poised to claim it.

“Do not,” Emris said, the words lethally soft. “Ever attempt to touch her again.”

The hatred between them crackled in the air. Jake fought against Emris, exchanging blows. “You think you can just swoop in? I LOVE her! Mine for YEARS! {{user}}, baby- come to me...”