ruined my silk shoes, but I didn't care. Every step away from that house felt like shedding a layer of lead. I wasn't just

Joe as a predator trying to lure me away from my family duties. I had ignored his letters, blocked hi

to the Vanguard Tower. It was a sleek, glass needle piercing the city's skyline, a mon

s reflected the dim night-lights, and the security guard didn't even ask for my ID; h

n, I found myself in a penthouse studio that smelled of ozone, expensive

to me. He had a shock of stark white hair that caught the moonli

oice sounding smaller than

s. He looked like the grandfather I never had. "Oh, dear child," he chuckled, his voice raspy and war

rrowed. "Th

shadow draped over a velvet armchair in the cor

darkness, a

ough formal letters and the elderly secretary, I had built a mental image

rong. De

deep, midnight black, swept back with a deliberate carelessness that made him look like he had just stepped off a runway-or a battlefield.

yzed, my mind screaming at my past self: How? How could you have turned this man down for a life of scraping for sc

lian leather shoes the only sound in the room. He stopped just inches away, radi

looded strategist now. I wasn't supposed to be a girl blushing at a handsome fac

g its edge. "Nice to meet you, I'm Elara Silas I c

y hand. He didn't

smell the sandalwood and dark chocolate on his skin. Before I coul

r breath for a decade and had finally found oxygen. His arms were like iron bands around me, his face bur

ered, his voice a

ng I've waited for you to

f a man seeing a talented designer for the first time. This was the reaction of a