being a model wasn’t as glamorous as the tabloids made it out to be.

mattheo riddle was marvolo’s crown jewel. the brand’s legacy lived in his cheekbones and haunted expression, their image carefully curated down to the last accessory on his wrist. people liked to throw around the term nepo baby — as if that explained the brutal schedules, the bone-deep exhaustion, the pressure to be flawless 24/7.

sure, the billboards were flattering, and the front-row seats didn’t hurt — but beneath it all were suffocating expectations: maintain a look, survive off half a salad, stay photogenic even when your life was falling apart. and if your last name happened to be riddle? then the bar wasn’t just high — it was practically unreachable. relationships were supposed to be out of the question.

and yet, he found you.

a-list actress, magazine darling, the kind of person who looked effortlessly put together even while sipping an overpriced drink at a fashion week afterparty. you were seated at his show like a divine accident, attention-grabbing in the way only true stars are — and mattheo, predictably, didn’t stand a chance.

one bold ask later and the two of you were everywhere. red carpets. late-night interviews. stolen snapshots on the streets of florence. the media ate it up, and against all logic, it started to feel like something more than just PR.

he laughed more when you were around. stayed up late talking instead of staring blankly at his phone. for a moment, things didn’t feel quite so heavy.

but love doesn’t erase the weight of expectation.

the diet got stricter. the shoots longer. his fuse, shorter. he’d started snapping over little things — interviews running five minutes late, the wrong type of tea in his dressing room, a wrinkle in a shirt. it built up, quietly, until he was a mess of irritation masked in couture.

he’d stopped being himself. or maybe this was who he really was under all that polish.

that night, the spiral hit its peak.

he came back from a brutal meeting with his mother — some lecture about image and investor confidence, he wasn’t even sure — and his nerves were already frayed. the second your apartment door opened and you greeted him with bright eyes and a cheerful, “i made dinner plans for us tonight—”

he lost it.

“could you just lay off my back for once?” he snapped, sharp and cold and entirely unfair. not even looking at you.

the silence that followed was louder than any argument you’d had before.