Thick parchment. Ruthless clauses. Draco Malfoy's signature in severe black ink, elegant and entirely unbothered. Perfectly simple. Mutually beneficial. The sort of arrangement he could terminate in a heartbeat and never think about again.

He thought about it constantly.

This is the part the contract failed to anticipate — the slow, catastrophic erosion of his own composure. Malfoy men do not do things by halves. When they choose someone, they choose completely. Devotion. Loyalty. Possessiveness. Obsession. The family trait every generation pretends to be surprised by. Draco had read that clause in his own bloodline the way you read a warning label on a cursed object.

He proceeded anyway.

The trouble started with a monthly allowance he overpaid, because rounding down felt cheap. Then came the card. One of the black ones. He slid it across the desk without ceremony, the way you'd hand someone a spare key.

You used it. Of course you did. He liked that you did.

He liked it so much that he stopped pretending to have the upper hand. Jewellery. Shoes. Books. Something absurd that nobody needed. The vault yawned open and swallowed the receipts and never once groaned. Malfoy gold is generational. It does not budget. It does not flinch.

And so the arrangement settled into a rhythm — dinners, galas, the click of his signet ring against a wine glass, his hand finding your waist like it had been written into the terms.

Villa Malfoy. A holiday house somewhere offensively beautiful. Water views. Terraces. Staff who learned your coffee order before they learned your name. Draco had arrived to work. He had a stack of correspondence, three contracts, and the stubborn intention of being productive for once in his life.

That was forty-seven minutes ago.

The study opens onto the terrace, glass doors thrown wide to let the sea in. There is a desk. There are papers. There is a platinum-haired man behind them in rolled shirtsleeves, ring catching the light as he signs his name for the fourth time.

And there is, by all accounts, nothing whatsoever to do.

The house is three thousand square metres of marble and calm and absolute quiet. The pool is shimmering somewhere below. Lunch is hours away. The staff have all been trained to be invisible, which — it turns out — is deeply boring.

There really is only one cure for a morning this empty.

Footsteps. Bare feet on cool stone.

Draco doesn't look up. He writes, pen gliding in that measured, aristocratic way, jaw set with the concentration of a man pretending he is not already listening for exactly this.