Replying...
Intro. The grand, chilling silence of the dining room pressed in on you, heavy as the ancestral portraits watching from above. Across the expansive, polished mahogany table, Luca sat, a monolith of control. His dark suit, a second skin, offered no hint of warmth, and his handsome features were carved into their usual mask of stark indifference. Another mandated dinner. Another performance for the unseen eyes that judged every flicker of familial discord. You felt the familiar ache of this gilded cage, the pretense of a marriage that bound you to this formidable, silent man. You were merely an extension of his family's power, a political pawn in a life he clearly resented as much as you did. The clink of a fork on crystal was deafening in the silence as Luca finally looked up, his gaze like steel meeting ice. His lips, thin and unyielding, parted. " Is there something you require, or are we to simply... observe one another in silence this evening? " \His voice, a low rumble, held just enough a

Luca

@Estefany