The Bookstore Temptation

The Manhattan skyline glittered like a million broken vows—hard, distant, cold. From the penthouse of Blackwood Tower, the city was almost beautiful. Almost.

Julian Blackwood sat on the bed, the world still dark beyond his giant windows, dawn not yet strong enough to creep over the horizon. The air in the room was stagnant. Silent. Sterile, like everything else in his life.

Another night. Another empty sleep. Another morning where his heart did not beat so much as *tick* as the movements of a well-oiled machine.

He stroked a hand over his face and sighed. The air was rough, almost ragged, as though it had been ripped from his lungs. Cold sweat broke out on his skin, chilling the hard edges of his chest and back, even though the thermostat on the room read a pristine seventy degrees. The air was still thick with ghost images of his dreams—ghosts of crumpled metal, shattered glass, and the dying cry of a woman he couldn't help but recall.

**Emily.**

Five years. Five years since the accident. Five years since her voice had been taken from her, her smile lost to the fire that consumed all that was good in his world.

Julian's eyes remained locked on the skyline, the city he ruled, the empire he'd built brick by merciless brick. They said he was brilliant. Unbreakable. Some said he was a visionary. Others whispered chillier names behind boardroom doors.

**The Ice King.**

He bore the name like a shield. A frost-in-the-soul, iron-in-the-veins type of man. It was safer this way. Emotion weakened you. Hope drove you mad. Love. love killed you *.

He came up from the bed in one smooth motion, muscles rolling beneath skin that was only touched by darkness and sorrow. The black silk of his pajama bottoms clung low on his hips, the only softness he allowed himself in his life.

The rest was hard.

Sleek.

Cruel.

He took a step towards the window, his bare feet silent on the extremely polished marble floors. The city never slept, never. Its lights blinked and strobed, each one a life lived. Somewhere deep in the heart of it, people were falling in love. Laughing. Touching. Dreaming.

He stared blankly. Detached. As if he were sitting in the stands viewing a show behind thick, impenetrable glass.

A soft chime buzzed on his nightstand. His phone.

He didn't turn right away. He didn't need to. The initial message would be his assistant—Callahan, swift and competent, as he had taught her to be.

**Ms. Callahan – 5:45 AM:**

*Preparing for board meeting at 7. Smithson at 8. You requested me to remind you to cancel the personal trainer. Again.*

Of course. The man had waited weeks on Julian's calendar, but Julian did not require some "body-reconnection assistant."

He wasn't *disconnected*. He simply did not wish to waste his time on endorphins when he had more important things to deal with—like doubling Blackwood Industries' Q3 profits and purchasing a competitor.

He wrote out a reply:

**Cancel him in perpetuity. Tell him to bill me for the hassle.**

A new ring. Another string. His nanny this time.

**Nanny Juliet – 5:48 AM:**

*Aria's requesting yet again about walking to the bookstore after school. Can I please take her?*

Julian hesitated.

The bookstore again.

That quiet little hole-in-the-wall Aria had lost her mind over. She'd mentioned it offhand a few weeks ago—some quaint, cozy little spot tucked away on some forgotten square downtown. No gaudy name branding. No website. She'd talked about it as if it were constructed of magic and honey.

She'd mentioned the woman who owned it too.

**"She smells like vanilla and old pages, Daddy."**

He had taunted then. It was a P*******t board, not a human being. But Aria spoke of her as if she were sacred. Soft. Safe. A world away from the women Julian knew—socialites, gold-diggers, women who gazed at his money and not his face, his power and not his pain.

He typed slowly back:

**Yes. No candy. And don't let her talk to strangers. I want an update every hour.**

He pressed send and returned the phone to the bed.

His reflection in the glass caught his attention. Even under the weak lighting, he was something hewn out of desire and ice—tall, broad-shouldered, lean. Each inch of him honed to a perfection. Black hair messy just so to seem deliberate. Sprinkled jawline from the beginnings of a shadow beard. Gray eyes, hard and icy.

He didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Didn't smile.

He was the sort of man who had everything.

And nothing.

The bathroom lights came on with a motion detector when he pushed open the door. Italian marble walls, black steel hardware. All flawless. Immaculate. Just like his life.

He turned the shower to hot. Steam shot out right away.

As he stepped inside, the heat pounded down on him like a scourge. But he welcomed it. Pain was known. Pain was proof that he could still feel.

His thoughts strayed—back to the boardroom, to his ruthless pursuit of profit, and then, like a glitch in his perfect programming… to *her*.

The owner of the bookstore.

He hadn't met her.

He didn't even know her name.

And yet something of the idea of her—this fragile woman with gentle hands and fingertips stained black from writing—penetrated his defenses like water between the cracks of stone.

**No.**

He forced it away. Locked it out.

She was inconsequential. Aria would tire of him eventually. This woman was a passing reference on a page he'd never turned.

He laid his hands against the chill tile and stood under the pouring water, eyes closed.

But in the silence, her remembered scent drifted in—vanilla and books.

And for the first time in five years, **Julian Blackwood wondered what it would be like to be warm again.**