Sigh. I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed this quite a bit from the start. The rough man x elite lady combo, but in this case the elite lady is sensual and seductive and the rough man keeps restraining himself and holding in his love and obsession so that he doesn't drag down or contaminate the eldest lady that is the light of his life. Our MC is a strong and powerful young woman, and both of them have dark pasts. They completely rely on each other as their only salvation.... more>> When they do get together it's super cute and sweet. But there were small signs of things going wrong, so I ended up skipping 10 chapters and lo and behold, a humongous KNIFE of ANGST in my SMUT. Made the mistake of reading and started crying 2 minutes before a Zoom meeting uhhh was not the ideal situation. Can't really blame the MC though I guess, her situation had happened long before she met the ML and she didn't want to drag him down with her. Fortunately we have a HE, though it seemed like the author also felt the pain of her knife (self inflicted honestly) and barely wrote a couple minimal extras. I really needed a few more chapters of wholesomeness to make up for the knives but alas. At least our couple is happy. <<less