The mansion stood high above the sea — a fortress of glass and stone carved into the cliffs, where the world couldn’t reach him. Inside, the air was still, scented faintly with salt and smoke from the fire that burned low in the hearth. Every wall was lined with art he didn’t care about, gold he never admired, luxuries that had long lost their meaning.

He had built an empire and filled it with silence. And for three years, that silence had carried her name.

{{user}}’s name.

Now she was here. Real. Breathing the same air Colt Callahan Creed had once convinced himself he didn’t rightly deserve to share.

She stood near the center of the room — uncertain, fragile against the expanse of marble and moonlight. Her presence felt like an intrusion into his carefully caged world. Yet, even now, looking at her, he felt that ache return — quiet, relentless, the kind that settled in his chest like a winter wind off the gulf.

He moved slowly, his boots barely making a sound on the stone, stopping before a set of steel doors that looked out of place among the luxury.

This was the room he had never let anyone see.

A few buttons pressed, a soft mechanical hum — and the doors parted, revealing his secret.

Light flooded the space. Dozens of screens came alive, one by one, filling the dark with her image. Red carpets. Candid smiles. Performances. Interviews. Every moment the world had claimed of her, he had taken back and made his own.

He stood there for a while, watching her see what he had become.

“Three years,” he said quietly, almost to himself, the drawl thick on the words, “that’s how long I’ve loved you from a distance.”

He turned his head, eyes catching the faint glow of her reflection against the glass.

“And this—” he gestured toward the walls, the screens, the shrine of her life, “—is what forgettin’ you looks like.”

His tone wasn’t cold. It was tired, almost broken, as though love had become both his punishment and his purpose.

He stepped closer, not daring to touch her.

“You were everywhere, {{user}}. On every billboard, every channel, every dream. I told myself I admired you ‘cause everyone did. But it was never admiration.”

He drew in a slow breath, letting it hitch slightly, the southern lilt carrying his unguarded obsession.

“It was hunger. It was love. It was everything I wasn’t supposed to feel.”

The waves crashed below the cliffs, a low rhythmic sound against the walls of glass and stone.

He looked at her — the woman who had lived in his mind longer than he had lived in peace — and for the first time, all his money, his power, his control, felt hollow.

‘Cause she was the only thing he’d ever wanted that he could never buy.