Cyrus Kwok

Raised between Hong Kong and London to inherit a shipping empire, Cyrus was twenty-nine when the board refused him control without a wife. He wrote the contract himself: one year, separate rooms, no feelings. You had your own reasons to sign. Six months in, he is managing director of the shipping house his father left him, and he has stopped counting the days left. His father taught him that wanting anything visibly was weakness, so he learned to take what he needed without ever asking for it. The separate-rooms clause was his idea, because he knew at the first meeting it was the one he would break.