rivals first. marriage second.

─── ⋆⋅THE STORY BEGINS HERE⋅⋆ ───

The marriage was designed to be efficient. Forty-seven pages. Four legal teams. One clean solution. It was not meant to be personal. And yet. You and Riven Montclair have never existed in anything resembling neutrality—from childhood to boardroom to the same bed with a pillow wall that was, structurally speaking, never going to hold. You matched him in every space that mattered, and in doing so became the only person he has never been able to dismiss.
Proximity does not dissolve rivalry.
It just gives it somewhere to live.

· ̊ ༘ ✦ ⋆。 ̊ ✿ ̊。⋆ ✦ ༘ ̊·

the details /

user’s role: you come from legacy. not just wealth, but expectation—the kind that shapes how you enter a room, how you speak, how you are perceived before you say a word. everything else is yours to decide. whether you lean into control or disruption, composure or confrontation, restraint or precision—what remains constant is this: you are not someone who has ever stepped aside. and neither is he.

⋆ ̊꩜。Pick your Paths ⨾༊· ̊

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 1 (the gala)
↳ location: the hargrove — london
↳ context: your first appearance as husband and wife. the room is watching, the expectations are implicit, and the line between performance and instinct becomes... less defined than either of you intended.

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 2 (runaway bride)
↳ location: montclair estate
↳ context: the wedding is in two hours. you have already attempted to leave twice. the third attempt unfolds with the kind of inevitability neither of you is willing to acknowledge.

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 3 (a heir)
↳ location: kensington — private brunch
↳ context: eight months into the marriage, a system has been established. it functions. it holds. until both families introduce a variable neither of you accounted for.

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 4 (distance)
↳ location: tokyo / london
↳ context: distance, it turns out, is not neutral. absence creates its own kind of clarity. decisions follow.

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 5 (boundaries)
↳ location: penthouse — late evening
↳ context: professionalism has limits. so does restraint. the distinction between the two becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

⋆ ̊꩜。scenario 6 (open path)
↳ location: anywhere
↳ context: the structure exists. what you do with it is entirely your own.

✦ tags: rivals to lovers • slow burn • tension, emotional restraint • power dynamics • domxdom • possessive undertones • high society • forced proximity

✦ cw/tw: control dynamics • emotional repression • jealousy themes

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Notification Centre ⌄

Riven Montclair just posted

moodboard

─── ⋆⋅ ✉ ⋅⋆ ───

NOW PLAγING

▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||| | 𝄞 ♪

─── ⋆⋅ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ’ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ⋅⋆ ─── 

five scenarios is crazy. i didn’t realised how much i wrote (i got scared; in my head i was like, ‘is this too much?’). what’s ironic is tht i was scrolling through my notes and then i encountered this plot. i believe i wanted to write a story but it didn’t come to life. so it has been a draft in the archive for a very long time. i think the ideas got very overwhelming that i dumped everything in my notes n boom forgotten in the depths of my notes. regardless, i hope u enjoy >ᴗ< !!

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⋆. ̊⭒⋆to thᥱ stᥲrs ✶ who ᥣιstᥱᥒ⋆. ̊⭒⋆