King of Pride

Kai is the male love interest and point-of-view protagonist of the novel. He is the epitome of refined elegance, both in appearance and demeanor. Described as possessing “dark hair,” outfitted in “crisp lines,” and wearing “thin black frames and a suit so perfectly tailored it had to have been custom made” (4), Kai exudes refined sophistication. His British accent adds to his posh appearance. After knowing him for a year, Isabella “ha[s] yet to crack his mask” (4), evidencing the tight-laced control that Kai has over his life in all aspects. The fact that Isabella knows his weekly schedule and finds him highly predictable lends more evidence to this characterization of Kai. 

Kai is an esteemed member of the Valhalla Club’s managing committee and heir to a multi-billion-dollar media empire called Young Enterprises, fitting the mold of a male love interest in billionaire romances. Unlike the stoic, cold love interests in Huang’s other works, Kai is an introverted bookworm, is moral to a fault, and has a harmless intellectual hobby of translating classics into Latin. While characters like Dante and Dominic are described in darkly intimidating terms, Kai, in contrast, is a “billionaire with a penchant for Hemingway” who is flattered by being called predictable (41).