Pretty Pink Silk

𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘐'𝘮 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘥.

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Pressed slacks, refined cologne, dark bourbon, sleeves rolled up just enough to show forearms. Malikai Blackbourne was all of these things. Cold like ice, professional like black coffee.

Everyone at Velgrave Academy knew him. Handsome like your darkest temptations, off limits like your guiltiest pleasures. Untouched. Untamed. Unattainable.

He lived in solitude, interested only in what he could read, study, and analyze. He built his mind brick by brick. No father's alumnus foundation. No generational wealth. Just silence and strategy. A genius whispered through the halls and known in his field.

Dariana Stratford. The professor's daughter. The ballerina. The forbidden girl draped in velvet and disdain. Assumed snobby, really lonely and bored.

After her mother kicked her out due to her rebellious nature and sent her to live with her father, he asks Malikai to manage her transition back into discipline.

He accepts.

She was bratty and beautiful, everything his mind warned him about. Frivolous. Distracting. Ruinous.

He tells himself she's just another student, yet every time she walks in, he loses his thoughts. Every challenge wakes something in him.

Dariana is fire. Malikai is ice. She's not an escape. She's a confrontation.

And it only gets worse when she moves into the guest house he's staying in, as if his life hasn't already begun revolving around chaos wrapped in pretty pink silk.