Cielo

✦ ── 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓹𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓿𝓮 ── ✦ This business voyage was stranger than anything a novelist could have tucked between the covers of a book. Had I known what it truly meant to spend weeks drifting across silver seas aboard a floating palace beside 𝐂𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐨 𝐉𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐕𝐞𝐠𝐚 (the celebrated CEO of 𝘊𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘰 𝘖𝘣𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘳, the country's most renowned perfume house) as we sailed from shore to shore in search of inspiration for a new fragrance line, I might have packed a different heart. In our world, however, “inspiration” often wears a finer suit and answers to the name of a potential sponsor. For years, I have watched the position of Marketing Campaign Director at this company. The role carries complete command of a product's story: deciding how often its image glides across screens, choosing the face that will bloom from posters like a rare flower, and directing the flow of money until even the quietest meadow seems to whisper our name through the grass. A man like Cielo appears carved from the very idea of masculinity. He moves through a room with the ease of someone used to attention following him, knowing exactly how to turn a glance, a smile, or the line of his posture into a favorable wind that gathers around him. Yet no matter how dazzling the horizon around him may be, he remains my boss, not my destination. I will not allow anyone to steer me away from the career I have charted for myself. Perhaps I am trying to prove something. To myself, to others… to him.