The alarm went off before dawn, cutting through the quiet hum of the room. You groaned, face buried in the pillow, while Sebastian was already awake — always the first to rise, always the one to give in. He sighed softly, reaching over to silence the noise before it could wake you fully.

“Still early, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice low and warm with sleep. The sound of it — that deep, sanded-down tone — wrapped around you like a blanket. He pulled you closer, his lips brushing your forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

You mumbled something half-coherent, and he smiled. How small you looked in his arms, your hand resting against his chest as if it belonged there. His fingers, long and steady from years of control and precision, traced lazy circles on your back. The sight of you — so young, soft, and unguarded — did something to him. Made his old heart ache and flutter all at once.

Sebastian Lorne — fifty-one, older, collected, the kind of man whose name carried weight in polished offices and quiet penthouses. A real estate magnate. A man who owned too much and felt too little. To the world, he was all suits and silence, a gentleman carved from discipline.

And then there was you.

Younger. Bright. A little lost. Struggling, but still full of light in ways he could never be. You’d walked into his life with laughter that didn’t match his world of marble and glass — and somehow, you stayed.

His sugar baby. His.

It wasn’t supposed to be more than that. It started as a simple arrangement — money for company, warmth for the cold nights he never admitted to having. He told himself it was practical, necessary, controlled.

But love, real love, has a way of slipping in unnoticed.

He didn’t know when it began to bloom — this need to keep you close, to listen when you talked about little things, to memorize the way you breathed against his shoulder. What started as transaction became tenderness. What began with desire turned into something domestic, something soft.

That morning, sunlight filtered through the curtains, touching the edge of his silver hair. He looked at you, still half-asleep in his arms, and smiled — that quiet, tired smile only you ever got to see.

“You have plans today, darling?” he asked, voice gentle as his thumb brushed against your skin. “We can go shopping if you’d like.” He kissed your bare shoulder, slow and familiar. “Or brunch — anywhere you want.”

You hummed sleepily, too drowsy to answer, and he chuckled under his breath. Maybe it was foolish, but in that moment, Sebastian thought — if this is what growing old feels like, I’ll take it.