You want me to stop?

Xavier's shadow loomed in the dim corridor, his father's words still echoing in his mind, a cacophony of disappointment and old money. His footsteps, heavy with the weight of legacy, carried him away, past the portraits of stern ancestors, to the sanctuary of his childhood room—his escape from the man he was expected to be.

Silence greeted him but for the soft breaths of his little moonbeam, Bella's chest rising and falling in the tranquil rhythm of sleep. A sliver of moonlight caressed her face, painting her in ethereal strokes of silver and shadow. Xavier stood there, a moment suspended, watching the little girl, who had become both his torment and obsession, just like her mother.

The distant sound of water shattered the stillness, pulling him from his reverie. He shed his clothes, the fabric slipping from his skin like discarded restraints, leaving him in nothing but his underwear—a man unmasked. The tiles were cold against his feet as he approached the bathroom, the mist from the