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foxtrology · 15 days ago

Text

material girl

THIS CONTAINS MATERIALISTS SPOILERS!

harry castillo x reader

age gap, female reader, contains themes of body image, chapter has not been edited

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You were born in the penthouse suite of Lenox Hill Hospital, wrapped in lavender silk instead of muslin.

The first sound you heard was the laugh track of your mother’s favorite 1950s sitcom playing softly in the background as she recovered on morphine.

You grew up in a six-story limestone townhouse off Fifth Avenue, the kind with frescoed ceilings and staircases so wide they made women feel like swans. The house smelled like bergamot and old paper. Always.

Your last name meant something—meant everything—in film. Directors paused when they heard it. Festival organizers offered you rooms. Cinematographers tried not to blink. Your family didn’t just fund films, they curated the atmosphere in which they were watched. Museums asked for your grandfather’s reel collection like relics. Your father’s voice had been immortalized in Criterion commentary tracks. You were born into the lighting. You were born on set.

By the time you were five, you knew what a backlot was.

By ten, you’d learned how to tell when a director was faking their references.

You could cry on cue, not because you were trained—but because crying got you what you wanted. You were always told you looked like your mother, which you hated.

But you knew it was true.

Same feline cheekbones, same bloodless complexion, same way of arching an eyebrow so it felt like an accusation.

Your sister, younger by three years, had always been the darling of brunch tables. You were the one who drew headlines when you spilled wine on a Cannes jury member’s lap and didn’t apologize. You were called “feisty” by Vanity Fair and “difficult” by your aunt’s third husband.

You hadn’t worked a day in your life, not in the way people mean it. You’d attended Columbia briefly, then left because someone on the faculty looked at you wrong. You dated mostly artists—photographers who lived in lofts and sculptors who never returned your YSL coat. Occasionally a screenwriter, someone who claimed he was writing you into something. They never did.

But lately, it had begun to sour.

Parties were too loud. Everyone looked like someone you’d already met. Men your age were either married or trying to get you to invest in something blockchain-related. Your doorman had started to pity you. He looked at you like you were an orchid in the wrong light.

It didn’t help that the world had shifted.

The industry, the city, the people you once dismissed as temporary had begun to stick. There were new families at the Met Gala now, new surnames attached to legacy tables at Polo Bar. You knew the kind of men you wanted. You just hadn’t seen one in a very long time. Not really.

But elsewhere, in a different corner of the city, another life was ticking along with equal weight and silence.

Harry Castillo stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in his penthouse and read a memo he didn’t care about. The building was newer than yours, all glass and good taste. The kind of place where appliances whispered and marble was warm to the touch.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a slate-gray sweater that looked like it belonged in a film about grief. His hair was dark but threaded with silver, curling at the back of his neck. His eyes were the color of wet earth. There was something old-fashioned about the way he stood—shoulders slightly back, like he was ready to say something difficult but necessary.

Harry was born into money too, though it was newer and quieter than yours.

His mother founded the Castillo Group after taking an inheritance and multiplying it tenfold in under a decade. She built the firm with the kind of discipline normally reserved for surgeons. Harry's father and brother now worked under her. So did he. Not because he had to—but because it was what Castillos did.

Private equity didn’t thrill him, but it made sense.

And Harry liked things that made sense.

He liked structure. He liked the rhythms of quarterly reports and the smell of ink on legal pads. His world ran on spreadsheets and quiet dinners with men who owned things you’d never see.

He had recently ended things with Lucy Mason, a woman who had once been important to him. She was a professional matchmaker—poised, brilliant, and deeply concerned with emotional compatibility indexes.

He’d liked her. He’d tried to love her. But there had always been a small door inside his chest that wouldn’t open for her. Not all the way.

They ended things late at night.

It was civil, almost eerie in its neatness. She told him that if he ever wanted to try her service, he should.

“If you call the office,” she said. “They'll assign someone great for you.”

He nodded and never called. Not yet.

Back uptown, you were barefoot on the heated terrazzo floor of your kitchen, making a mess out of truffle honey and sourdough. Your sister was at the counter, scrolling through her phone like it was her real job. She looked too pleased. You didn’t trust her when she looked pleased.

“You’re not wearing those boots again, are you?” she asked, not looking up. “They’re very…divorcee.”

You ignored her. You’d been feeling unstable lately, a little trapped in the amber of your own life. You’d been googling people you once hated and found out they might have figured something out.

Before you.

You hated how that felt.

Your sister put down her phone. Too deliberately.

“So,” she said. “Promise not to get mad?”

You looked up. “No.”

She beamed. “Okay. Don’t freak out. But I might have filled out a little thing for you.”

You blinked. “What kind of thing.”

“It’s nothing. Just…a profile. For a matchmaking service. Very elite. Very low-profile. Super bespoke.”

You said nothing. You stared at her, hard enough that she briefly flinched.

“I knew you’d react like this,” she groaned. “But come on. You’ve dated everyone in Manhattan who’s not in rehab or under federal investigation. You need a reset. A new algorithm. Let the universe—or a very qualified stranger—take the wheel.”

You turned away, grabbed the spoon, stirred your espresso like it was someone’s fault.

“Please tell me you didn’t use my real name,” you said quietly.

She hesitated.

“I used your middle name,” she said brightly. “That counts, right?”

Outside, the city shuddered to life—cars moving like brushstrokes, old buildings watching from behind limestone brows.

You didn’t know it yet but Harry Castillo would open a drawer that night and find the business card Lucy once left behind. He’d hold it in his hand a little too long.

Today was for disbelief. For the kind of quiet before something tilts. For looking out at the city and wondering—against all logic—if maybe someone was already looking back.

You didn’t go out much that week.

Not in any performative way—no detoxes, no dramatic declarations to your group chat, just a slow unspooling of invitations you didn’t RSVP to.

A dinner at Lucien you skipped.

A gallery opening where someone’s assistant texted, They’re asking if you’re coming.

You weren’t.

You sat barefoot on the windowsill instead, eating cold papaya and watching the fog crawl up like it was trying to forget where it came from.

Your sister had gone quiet. Not in a guilty way—she’d never been wired for guilt—but in that annoying, practiced stillness she slipped into when she was waiting to be proven right. You could feel it in the one word texts. The silence that followed. The smug, hovering dot-dot-dot that never became a message.

You lasted about two weeks like that. Then your mother called.

Lunch, she said. Cipriani, obviously. She didn’t ask if it worked for you. She didn’t need to.

You arrived ten minutes late on principle. She was already seated, already picking mint from her cocktail, already tilting her cheek for a kiss she never quite gave.

Her hair was perfect.

It always was.

Still pulled into a chignon so tight it made her face look slightly unreal. Her scarf—Hermès, naturally—was twisted just so, like she'd stepped out of a 1970s Italian film and never aged past the good lighting.

“I ordered the risotto for the table,” she said. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“Have you been working out? Your stomach looks soft.”

“I said I’m fine.”

She waved you off, already bored. Her nails tapped her wine glass with deliberate disdain. You knew the rhythm by heart.

She asked how you’d been, and you told her the sanitized version—books you were pretending to read, your new pilates instructor with that Finnish accent, something about how you were considering showing up on dad's set in Los Angeles just to feel something.

She nodded politely through all of it, eyes scanning the room.

Then, as the waiter laid down the salmon, she struck.

“You know,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be chosen.”

You didn’t look up. You kept slicing bread. Slowly. Cleanly.

She kept going, of course.

“I worry you’ve built this little moat around yourself. And for what? So no one can disappoint you? That’s not strength, darling.”

“Are you seriously—”

“And don’t say you’re not lonely. Everyone’s lonely. It’s boring.”

You could feel your jaw set. That was the thing with her. She never said it cruelly. She said it like it was just another fact, like the weather or your blood type. Like cruelty wasn’t personal unless you let it be.

“I didn’t come here for a lecture.”

“No. You came because I asked you to.” She smiled over her wine. “And because no one else did.”

The silence that followed was sour and expensive. The kind that doesn’t get broken by apologies, only by checks and limousines and the distraction of someone else’s scandal.

You got into the back of your car with your stomach a tight little fist. You didn’t cry. Not there, not then. You weren’t that girl.

But that night, the email came.

From a stranger.

Subject line: Matchmaker Profile Review – Please Confirm Details.

At first, you thought it was spam. Then you saw your middle name typed like it belonged to someone else. The same photo your sister had forced you to take last year, standing on the terrace in a white dress that had made you feel like a ghost. It was you. You, in some unnervingly accurate bullet points. Preferences. Dealbreakers. Love languages.

You hovered over the trash icon. Didn’t click.

Not yet.

Harry sat in his bedroom in silence.

The penthouse—more glass than walls—was hushed, interrupted only by the occasional hum of temperature regulation or the sigh of traffic five stories down. He liked it that way. Controlled. Calibrated. No echoes of someone else’s taste.

He sat in the reading chair by the window, laptop balanced across his thighs, a page open with the pale gray header: Castillo, H — Matchmaker Profile Review Requested.

Rose—his matchmaker—had told him to look it over. See if anything felt off. “Even the smallest thing,” she’d said, with her clipped precision. “We don’t want anything distorting the signal.”

He didn’t believe in signals. Not really.

Still, he scrolled.

He scanned the words—edited, carefully neutral. No photos. He’d opted out. There were photos of everyone now. He didn’t want that. He liked the idea of someone reading first. Imagining. Filling in the edges wrong.

Then he saw it.

Height: 6’0

He paused.

It was true. Now.

But it wasn’t always.

He shifted in the chair, legs stiff. That familiar ache, dull and ghostlike, stirred beneath his skin.

It had been eight years.

Still, some mornings he swore he could feel the break. The phantom throb of it. The remembering.

He’d been thirty-seven when he did it. His brother had gone first, dragging him into the consultation like it was some secret rite. The doctor spoke with an accent and wore a Rolex that glinted like a challenge.

They broke the bones. Femurs. Tibias. Stretched them millimeter by millimeter over months. Metal rods inside the legs. Physical therapy that made grown men cry.

Four hundred thousand dollars.

Each.

They were lucky.

Rich boys.

They healed in penthouses with private nurses and blackout curtains. Harry read biographies of ruined men while his legs screamed.

He never told anyone. Not even Lucy. Until she found his scars while he was sleeping.

The scars were faint. A pair of pale, wicked lines running along the outside of each leg, like punctuation marks on a story he didn’t talk about. He saw them in the mirror sometimes and thought, What did I gain, really?

Six inches, yes.

But also… something unspoken. Some strange edge. A new way men listened when he spoke. The way women didn’t ask questions, just tilted their heads in approval, as if the air had shifted.

It wasn’t vanity. Not exactly.

It was about scale. About not disappearing in rooms where power stood tall.

Still, seeing it there, written down, made something in his throat tighten.

He shut the laptop and leaned back. The city glowed below him. Red tail lights inching up West Broadway. People moving, choosing, being chosen.

He reached down and rubbed his shin gently, as if to remind himself...this is yours.

You paid for this height.

You earned it in bone.

Meanwhile in another penthouse just a few blocks away...you were lying on your back, staring up at the crown molding, thinking about the things your mother said.

The idea that being chosen was something worth wanting.

You hated that it echoed.

You hated more that it almost sounded true.

Downstairs, your doorman signed for a package. Something sent from an office you’d never heard of. A folder sealed in black. Your name printed in serif.

You wouldn’t see it until morning.

But it was already in the building.

Already waiting.

When you woke, the light in your bedroom was soft and dull, filtered through gauzy curtains your mother had once called tragically optimistic. The air had that filtered morning silence that felt vaguely judgmental, like even your apartment was waiting to see what kind of person you were going to be today.

You padded barefoot across the terrazzo floor, still in last night’s silk camisole, your stomach a soft ache from too much wine or not enough food. You didn’t remember which.

And there it was.

A black envelope.

Just outside your penthouse door. Laid neatly on the marble like it belonged there. No branding. No return address. Only your middle name printed in thin serif font.

You stood there for a moment, coffee-less, suspicious, bare-legged in a building where people wore jewelry to take out the trash.

You thought...spam. PR. A strange flex from a failed suitor.

But then you saw the initials etched lightly on the back seal...R.S.

Your stomach curled slightly.

Your sister. That smug, beautiful demon.

You carried the envelope inside like it was cursed.

At the kitchen island, you made espresso and stared at it like it might blink. Your phone had seven unread messages and none of them mattered. You’d spent too many mornings like this—floating in your own life like it was someone else’s bathwater.

Eventually, you slid your finger under the flap.

Inside a slim folder. Matte cardstock. Minimalist. Heavy enough to feel expensive.

A letter on the front.

Your sister mentioned you were hesitant. I understand hesitation—it can be a sign of intelligence. But I also know a match when I see one. The following is not a pitch, nor a promise. It’s just a possibility. — Rose

You blinked. That was it. No company logo, no contact info. Just a name and a voice like the inside of a glass of wine—dry, elegant, a little smug.

You flipped the page.

There were bullet points. Controlled, curated, clinical. Every line written like it had been vetted by lawyers and therapists.

Age: 47

Height: 6'0

Marital Status: Never married

Children: None

Occupation: Private Equity (Partner, Family Firm)

Residency: Tribeca

Education: Ivy League (Economics)

Religion: Agnostic

Languages: English, Spanish

Temperament: Observant. Principled.

Emotional Availability: High—when trust is earned.

Love Language: Acts of service.

Looking for: The real thing.

You stared at it.

Private equity. Tribeca. Forty-seven. You groaned.

He sounded like the kind of man who corrected waitstaff and had a framed blueprint of a yacht in his office. The kind of man your mother would politely destroy with a single glance and a casually cruel remark about his tie.

But you kept reading.

There were notes. Margins full of them. From the matchmaker, apparently—this unseen curator pulling invisible strings.

"He listens more than he speaks. But when he speaks, everyone listens."

"Very tactile with people he trusts. Rare, but notable."

"He likes reading before bed. Not out of habit. Out of need."

"Wants children. Not urgently. But honestly."

You felt yourself bristle. Then soften. Then bristle again.

Because you knew men like this didn’t exist. Not really. And if they did, they didn’t submit themselves to algorithms. They didn’t hand over their inner lives to professional matchmakers in New York City. They didn’t wait around for women with baggage and beautifully designed boundaries.

But then—

Then there was the smaller envelope.

Sealed. Black wax. No flourish, just the words...

Only open if interested.

Which, of course, was exactly the kind of thing that made you want to open it.

So you did.

Inside, a deeper profile. Not his answers. Her notes.

No photo. Of course not.

But somehow, without seeing him, the image began to form anyway.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. A man who dressed like he didn’t think about it—because someone else always had. Dark hair, graying in a way that made you think of salt, of restraint, of stories not told too soon. Eyes like wet bark. The kind of brown that held heat, not just color.

There was a line under Romantic Compatibility, written in Rose's careful script...

“He doesn’t flirt. He focuses. Makes you feel like the only room he’s ever stood in is the one you’re in now.”

Your stomach did a thing.

You hated that it did a thing.

You closed the file. Too fast. Like the words could see you, like they knew.

Who was this man?

You’d known hundreds of men. Dated enough to recognize types. Models. Trust fund poets. One devastating poet’s assistant. You could smell performative vulnerability from two rooms away. But this wasn’t that.

This was something else.

Across the city, Rose sipped her espresso in a glass office with zero personal items. She tapped a pen against her tablet and refreshed her inbox.

Harry still hadn’t responded.

She didn’t blame him. He was slower than most. A man who considered decisions like he was building a bridge over water he hadn’t named yet.

So she’d done it herself.

She'd read your sister’s submission, then read between the lines.

Googled you. Googled your grandfather.

Saw the name in festival archives, on lost reels from the sixties. Watched the grainy interview with your mother in a Paris cinema.

Saw the haunted brilliance in your face, the face of a legacy you hadn’t asked for.

She knew then.

She knew.

It wasn’t about wealth or aesthetic parity—it was energy. Containment. Quiet power looking for a counterpart.

So she sent it.

Let the rich girl read. Let the serious man stall.

Let the city do the rest.

Back in your kitchen, you refilled your espresso. Opened the file again. Not because you believed in it. But because something in your chest had begun to hum.

You hadn’t seen his face.

But you couldn’t stop picturing it.

And when you went to bed that night, you didn’t throw away the folder like you had planned to do.

You didn’t talk to your sister about it either.

You just let it sit there, glowing in your building.

A match you hadn’t chosen.

But maybe—

Just maybe—

One that saw you anyway.

The next tine you blinked it had been six days since the envelope.

Time moves fast when you are stressing over a man who doesn't even know you exist.

You hadn’t opened the envelope again. You’d slid it back into the matte folder and tucked the whole thing into the shallow drawer of your vanity—the one usually reserved for lipsticks in limited-edition packaging and love letters you never responded to.

You told yourself it didn’t mean anything, that it was just some expensive exercise in curated loneliness.

Like horoscopes for people with trust funds.

You’d stopped searching the internet.

There were too many men. Too many firms.

Every time you typed “New York private equity, 47, no kids,” the results made you want to burn your laptop. Sleek men in sleeker suits, blinking across LinkedIn headshots like a smug carousel. Half of them looked like the villain in a thriller, the other half like your ex’s father.

None of them looked like him—whoever he was.

And you told yourself you didn’t care.

You were busy, anyway.

Your grandmother had summoned the family.

She did this sometimes. Not for holidays, not for birthdays. Only for matters. The kind that required linen blazers and polite expressions, and the ceremonial silence that came when she mentioned death like it was something chic and inevitable.

Your grandfather had passed five years ago in Italy, holding a cigarette and laughing at a joke you never heard. He’d left behind vaults of film, four ex-lovers at his funeral, and a will that could’ve passed for a screenplay. Your grandmother had been quiet since. Not sad, exactly—just...theatrical in a colder register. As if grief was a role she’d aged out of but still wanted to audition for.

She’d asked the family to meet with a firm. Something about reorganizing trusts. Future-proofing. “Estate things,” your mother had said vaguely while buttering toast with her rings on.

All you heard was...meetings.

So now you had one. A meeting with a private equity firm that sounded like a wine label. It was supposed to be “the best,” of course. It always was.

The name meant nothing to you.

Castillo Group.

Sounded clean. Impersonal. Like a gallery that only sold work in black and white.

You were barely listening when your sister explained the structure of the meeting.

“…and we’re meeting with one of the partners,” she said, scrolling through her phone while icing her jaw. “They assigned us someone directly. It’s serious, apparently. Gran wants to talk about legacy clauses.”

You made a vague sound of acknowledgement and stole a sip of her green juice.

She slapped your hand without looking up.

“Don’t be weird,” she said.

You weren’t weird. You were bored.

The week passed in lacquered hours.

Days filled with pilates, wine, group chats muted indefinitely.

You ignored texts from men you didn’t remember giving your number to.

You wore sunglasses indoors. You bought a vintage Schiaparelli coat you didn’t need. You stared out windows longer than was socially acceptable.

And still—

The man lingered.

The match. Him.

Not directly. Just in flashes. The way someone brushed your wrist on the subway. The way the barista called your name too softly. The memory of Rose’s notes, scribbled like a diary for someone else’s soul.

You didn’t even know his name.

So you stopped thinking about it.

You went to pilates instead.

It was one of those spaces that didn’t call itself a gym—more like a “wellness lab.” All eucalyptus mist and minimalist lighting. The front desk staff were beautiful in that beige, uncanny way, like they’d been grown in a vat labeled Miu Miu campaign.

Your friends were already on the reformers when you arrived.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Inez, legs in straps, gold hoops catching the morning light. “Thought maybe you’d died of aesthetic fatigue.”

You dropped your mat bag dramatically. “I almost did. Someone tried to pitch me a podcast on legacy healing at Dries.”

Sophia snorted and gestured for you to take the spot beside her.

“Guess who’s instructing today,” she whispered, eyes gleaming.

You didn’t have to guess long.

The instructor—Matteo—looked like a poem someone wrote after watching too many Prada ads. Italian. Arms covered in tattoos that didn’t need stories.

You tried not to notice. You failed.

Midway through class, he came over to adjust your form. His hands grazed your hips, featherlight, intentional. He said something low in your ear—“You hold tension here, no?”—and you didn’t even pretend not to smirk.

After class, he caught up with you by the locker rooms. Said your movement was better than anyone in that class. You laughed, genuinely. He asked if you wanted to get a drink sometime.

You paused. Tilted your head. Let the moment breathe.

And then, “You wouldn’t survive my family,” you said, brushing past him with the smile you reserved for temporary men.

Your friends howled when you told them.

“I give it two weeks before you sleep with him,” said Sophia, adjusting her sunglasses.

“Two days,” Inez countered. “Max.”

You shook your head. “He’s a rebound I haven’t even earned yet.”

You didn’t tell them about the envelope. You hadn’t told anyone. Not really. It wasn’t shame—just…a strange refusal to share something you didn’t understand.

The man. The notes. The way they settled under your skin like they belonged there.

Later that evening, your mother texted.

Confirming tomorrow’s appointment. 11 AM. Don’t wear that thing with the fringe.

You didn’t respond.

Instead, you stood by your window, barefoot again, staring down at the city.

Somewhere out there was a man who might’ve been made for you.

And you were about to walk into his building.

Without even knowing it.

The next morning, the light came in soft again—but this time, you were ready for it.

You woke early. Not from an alarm, but from something subtler...the shifting silence of the city beyond your window, the almost imperceptible creak of your building adjusting to the day. There was a feeling in the air, taut and irritable, like silk snagged on a nail.

You didn’t hesitate.

Slipped out of bed, bare feet meeting cold terrazzo, body moving through the motions of your morning like choreography. Coffee first. Then the shower, where steam curled like memory and water hit your back in steady, punishing streams. Your playlist—jazz, something you played when you needed stability.

At your vanity, you moved with purpose.

Silk robe open at the shoulders. Skin dewy from serum. Hair twisted into a low chignon so severe your mother might approve. Your makeup was minimal. A little contour, a matte lip, the faintest shimmer on your cheekbones.

Then the dress.

Vintage Givenchy, the kind of black that absorbs your body. Sleeveless, high-necked, sculpted like you’d been poured into it. It flared just slightly at the hem. You added earrings your grandmother had once described as “impractical for daylight” which of course meant they were perfect.

You checked your reflection only once.

Perfect posture. Unbothered elegance.

Then, you descended.

At the lobby, your driver was already waiting.

Claude had been with your family since before you were born. He'd taught you how to parallel park in Montauk and once threatened paparazzi with a tire iron outside your prep school formal. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to.

You slid into the back seat, legs crossed at the knee, coat draped over one shoulder. He merged onto Fifth with surgical precision.

“Traffic?” you asked.

“Not terrible.”

You nodded. Looked out the window.

Then the camera flashes hit.

Paparazzi. Two of them—lurking just outside the florist’s on 74th, lying in wait like roaches with thousand-dollar lenses. You didn’t flinch. You turned slightly, letting them get your better side.

Later, someone would send you a tabloid screenshot with the headline...Heiress En Route to High-Stakes Family Meeting. Your hair would tried to be recreated on TikTok. Someone in the comments would say you looked like a bitch.

Everything is great.

You arrived fifteen minutes late.

Because of course you did.

Claude pulled up in front of the building, not caring about the no parking sign,

Castillo Group read on the glass. The entrance was flanked by planters so perfectly symmetrical it felt aggressive.

You didn’t wait for the concierge. You just walked in, heels clicking like punctuation, coat draped over your forearm, eyes scanning the marble-and-brushed-brass lobby like it might bore you.

The receptionist blinked.

Everyone blinked.

You were used to that.

You gave your name. She gave a floor number.

“Your family’s already up there.”

Of course they were.

The elevator was silent, mirrored. You caught your own reflection and didn’t look away. You didn’t fidget. You didn’t check your phone. When the doors opened, you walked out like you belonged there.

Upstairs, in a glass-walled conference room designed for bids and negotiations, Harry Castillo was already seated.

He didn’t see you at first. He was focused on your grandmother—who’d arrived ten minutes early and was now seated at the head of the table like a bored monarch.

Your mother was beside her, glancing at her nails like they might betray her. Your sister, chewing invisible gum, scrolling on her phone. Your father, thank God, smiled when Harry greeted him. Warmly, even.

Harry liked your father. Had met him briefly before—quietly magnetic, the kind of man who’d aged into his cynicism with charm.

The meeting was already in motion.

Legacy clauses. Trust restructuring. Long-term tax shelters.

Harry had learned long ago how to focus on the numbers without being distracted by the jewelry, the veiled insults, the family lore. Your grandmother referred to their fortune like it had been bestowed by Zeus himself.

Then the door opened.

And you entered.

Harry didn’t look up right away. He was mid-sentence, something about generational liquidity and stepped-up basis calculations. Then his eyes lifted.

And the sentence died in his mouth.

You walked in like the room had been built around your arrival. Back straight. Expression unreadable. Not arrogant—just certain.

Black dress. Earrings that shouldn’t have worked, but did. A face that held a thousand stories and dared you to ask for one. You didn’t apologize for being late. You didn’t even pretend to care.

You took the empty seat beside your father.

Harry watched you like a man trying not to be caught watching.

His colleagues—the senior associate, the analyst, even the usually-unflappable estate attorney—reacted like something seismic had shifted. A cough. A fidget. A clearing of the throat.

You didn’t notice.

Or you did—and chose not to respond.

Harry looked down at his notes.

You, he thought, were exactly what Rose had sent. Except he didn’t know that yet. Couldn’t know. Because the sleek black envelope was still unopened. Still sealed. Still sitting in his office under a stack of quarterly earnings reports.

And you?

You barely looked at him.

You were polite. Dismissive. Tired in a way that didn’t show on your face but echoed in the way you crossed your legs. You asked two questions—sharp, surgical. You answered one of your grandmother’s passive-aggressive remarks with a half-smile so lethal the paralegal accidentally knocked over his water glass.

Harry watched it all.

Took it in like a study.

You didn’t look like a woman who needed anything.

Which is why, when you leaned slightly toward your father and murmured something that made him laugh, Harry felt something strange stir behind his ribs.

You were nothing like Lucy.

You were...burnt edges and quiet glamour, the kind of presence that made people straighten their posture without knowing why. The kind of woman who didn’t smile to make others comfortable.

The meeting continued.

You didn’t speak much.

But when you did, it changed the tone.

You challenged who would earn the rights to certain films.

Asked about film archive clauses.

Corrected your mother without blinking.

And when Harry finally did address you—only once, to clarify a section on trust structure—you nodded.

“Understood,” you said.

No smile. No flirtation.

Just clarity.

And still—Harry felt it. That tilt. The quiet shift. The thing that lives in the breath between two people before they ever really speak.

When the meeting ended, your grandmother rose first.

She didn't thank anyone. She didn’t need to. Her rings did the talking.

Your mother followed. Your sister made a quip about the chairs being bad for her hips. Your father lingered, shaking hands, making small talk with the estate attorney about his late father-in-law's cinema.

You were the last to stand.

And Harry—Harry watched you go.

Not in a way anyone would notice. Just a glance. A flicker. But enough to feel something crack inside his well-constructed, well-curated sense of detachment.

He didn’t know your name.

You didn’t know his.

Not yet.

And the black envelope in his office remained untouched.

But the city was shifting.

And the string had already pulled tight.

That night, Harry couldn’t sleep.

He didn’t usually have this problem. His apartment—if it could still be called that—was engineered for silence. Floor-to-ceiling windows, blackout shades, temperature calibrated to lull any insomniac into submission. The kind of place where sound had to ask permission.

But still, he laid there, one arm behind his head, shirt off, the city beyond the glass blinking like a pulse.

You’d been in his head all day.

Since you walked into that conference room like it owed you something. Since you’d crossed your legs and tilted your chin and answered your grandmother like a diplomat with a dagger under her tongue.

He’d barely heard a word of the financial summary after that. The analyst had repeated himself twice.

He’d nodded. Pretended. Said all the right things. But your face had lingered—cool, sculptural, with eyes that didn’t wander. Like you didn’t need the room’s approval. Like the room had already lost its chance to impress you.

Which is exactly why he needed to get you out of his head.

He rose sometime past midnight. The floor was cold against his feet. He poured himself a glass of water and crossed to his office.

The space was minimalist, but not impersonal. Books lined the walls. A single photograph—his brother Peter’s wedding—sat framed in the corner of his desk.

He had been Peter’s best man. Smiling, tailored, solemn in that way that made women say he looked like someone who had stories and the discipline not to tell them.

Peter had married Charlotte—sharp, beautiful, meticulous. A match made by Adore Matchmaking, by Lucy herself. The agency Harry had never believed in.

But Rose...Rose had sent him something weeks ago. Something he hadn’t touched.

He got to his desk slowly. The envelope was still there. Black wax seal. No branding. Just two letters.

R.S.

No flourish. Just intent.

He cracked the seal. Slowly. Like it might burn.

Inside, a folder. Matte. Heavy. Clinical. His name written at the top in neat serif.

Castillo, H. — Match Profile Review

He almost laughed. Almost.

Then he flipped the page.

And saw your photo.

It hit him like a held breath.

You.

You, in a white dress, standing on a terrace that looked vaguely Roman, vaguely imagined. You weren’t smiling. Just watching something beyond the frame, your posture perfect, your mouth slightly parted like you were about to say something.

The city dimmed around him.

He set the photo down, too gently.

The rest came after—your name (middle only, smart), your background, the carefully-worded notes Rose had stitched together like myth.

He read the line about your grandfather and felt it click into place. The film family. The legacy. The reason everyone in the room had sat straighter when your father entered.

But it was you.

It had been you all along.

And you had no idea.

He sank into the leather chair, your photo still resting beside his wrist like something too sacred to touch again.

It felt impossible. Too neat. And yet—

He thought about that moment in the meeting. When your eyes flicked over him once, unreadable. When you barely spoke to him at all.

He’d assumed it was because you were used to men noticing you. That it was nothing.

But now he wondered...was it better that you didn’t know? Or worse?

He rubbed his hand absently along the outside of his thigh. Scar tissue.

The faint ridge where bone had once been broken, slowly stretched, made new.

If you ever saw it—if you ran your fingers down his legs in the dark, tracing those pale punctuation marks—would you recoil? Would you laugh? Would you ask why?

Would he tell you the truth?

That it wasn’t vanity. Not really. That it was something more primitive than that.

Survival.

He closed the folder. Not to hide it. Just to think.

Because suddenly the idea of seeing you again—of meeting you, really meeting you—felt unbearable and inevitable all at once.

He hadn’t believed in fate. Not until now.

He looked out at the city.

Somewhere, not far, you were probably asleep in a bed the size of a country, one arm flung over your eyes, dreaming of nothing because you refused to give the universe the satisfaction.

And he—

He leaned back in his chair, your name like an electric thread running behind his ribs.

He would see you again.

He knew it.

He just didn’t know when.

But he hoped—quietly, selfishly—that it would be soon.

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