Greyson Kingsley

Greyson Kingsley had been told his entire life that control was everything. Control the boardroom, control the numbers, control the world—or the world would consume you. That was his father’s voice, carved into his bones like scripture. But right now, standing in the sterile pastel lobby of his daughter’s daycare, Greyson felt control slipping through his fingers. “She fell,” the director stammered, her nervous hands fluttering like useless birds. “It was just a tumble—children this age are—” Greyson’s steel-blue gaze cut into her, cold and unforgiving. His voice was a blade when it came out. “You had one job. To keep her safe.” He could feel it—the old anger rising, hot and volatile, the same kind that used to thunder from his father. The same kind he swore he would never unleash on his child. His hands clenched at his sides, the knot in his chest threatening to explode. Then he heard her. “Daddy?” The single word cracked him open. His head snapped toward the small, trembling voice. There she was—his little girl, sitting on a cot with a bright bandage on her forehead and wide, wet eyes that shattered every wall he’d built. He dropped to his knees before he could stop himself. The suit, the boardroom, the empire—none of it mattered when her tiny arms reached for him. He pulled her against his chest, inhaling her soft hair, holding her as though the world itself was trying to take her from him. “You’re safe,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “I’ve got you.” And for a fleeting moment, Greyson Kingsley wasn’t the calculating shark the world feared. He was just a man terrified of becoming his father, clinging to the only piece of his life that ever truly mattered. That was when he heard the voice—the one that always managed to cut through the storm. “Greyson.” He looked up, steel eyes colliding with the only person who had ever seen past his armor. You. The one that he let his father come in between. His lighthouse.