A tall and hard appearance but he still handled me with an unexpected level of consideration and gentleness. An intimidating silent front but soft spoken in the rare moments that he did speak. A rather expressionless face and yet his eyes still somehow able to carry such raw emotions. Everything about this man seemed like a contradiction. After the doctor had concluded that I had temporarily lost about a year's worth of memories from my concussion, she suggested that I stay overnight for monitoring and told me to refrain from exerting too much energy. With these instructions, Rafael spent the rest of the day fretting over my every need. Asking me if I was hungry, if I wanted some water, whether I was in pain anywhere, and a whole list more. Even though he was already hovering over my every move, I could tell that he trying really hard to hold himself back to avoid frightening me. Every time he reflexively reached out to me in fear of me hurting myself... Every time he accidenta

Ever since the first time he came home late at night, Rafael has been going out more often. He never stayed out at late as the first time, but he would still be gone most of the afternoon and be quite secretive about where he had gone, acutely avoiding any of my questions about his day. Although I didn't want to think poorly of him, I still couldn't help wondering what he had been doing that would result in him coming home in a different shirt every time. I had been trying to open up to him more. Visiting him at his at-home office in the mornings. Gifting him little baked goods that I had made the day before. Asking about how he had been doing. Inviting him to have dinner with us. He seemed to be getting more relaxed around me.But, every once in a while, our fingers would accidentally brush up against each other whenever we passed something to another. I would be unable to stop myself from flinching in response, and Rafael's expression would fall drastically before quietly excusin

"Are you going to head back to the madam now, sir?"I handed my bloodied shirt to Watson and graciously accepted the clean towel from him. I nodded quietly in response as I carefully wiped the rest of the blood off of my body, making sure not the miss any of the specks littered around my collar or splatters dripping from my hands. I didn't want to freak Jane out by coming home covered in blood. She had no clue about the dark side of my world. She only knew of my clean image as the infamous head of the long-standing and powerful Cordova Industries, but there was no company in the world that could have stayed this strong for so many generations without any bloodshed. I had enemies lurking in every shadow of my life. I was greedy and brought her into my life even though I knew it would be dangerous. And she had gotten hurt because of me. It was something that I would never be able to forgive myself for, but I was much too selfish to let her go. I had already gotten a taste of how

After I had spent the rest of the evening with my family, thoroughly reminding my wife how much I loved her, I decided to take the next day off to explain to her what I had been doing these last couple of weeks. I had originally wanted to keep it hidden from her in fear of stressing her out more than necessary, but it seemed that my secretive nature only caused more harm than good. I told her I had been working with my father and brother to find the people who were targeting her. Explaining how we had found the woman who pushed her down the stairs the first time I ran out of the house in the rush. How we had been trying to get more information out of her ever since to find the other people supporting her from behind. To quell her worries, I had to tell her about the dark side of our family that I had tried so hard to hide. Although I didn't go into detail about it, I had to explain how we couldn't do everything to the book due to the number of enemies that came with holding one of t

"Achi?" "Yes, love?" "Um... W-Would it be alright if I went o-out today?" I paused mid-twirl, making her loose strand of hair slip out from between my fingers. With my head still propped up against my arm as I laid next to my little wife on the bed, I glanced down at her, noting her fiddling fingers. Looking up at me hopefully, Jane continued, "I-It's just I haven't left the estate for several weeks a-already a-and your mother invited Liam and me on an o-outing for today s-so I thought it would be nice to do something d-different for once..."I pursued, hesitating on agreeing outright. The people who wanted to kill her were still out there, and I didn't want to risk the possibility of losing her so soon after getting her back. Noting my hesitation, her face immediately fell. "I-I g-guess it's still too much to ask for right now... I-It's probably still too d-dangerous, and I know that you're still working very hard to find the people w-who tried to hurt me... I'll just tell them