Three years. Three years of loving Jake Morrison with every fiber of my being. Three years of supporting his dreams, celebrating his victories, and planning our future together. Tonight was supposed to be special—our anniversary dinner at Maison Laurent, the restaurant where we'd had our first date. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear. The bouquet of white roses—his favorite—lay on the passenger seat beside me. I'd left work early to pick them up, along with a vintage watch I'd been saving for months to buy him. Jake had been working late all week on the Henderson campaign, and I wanted to surprise him, to remind him that even in the midst of his rising career at Blackstone Entertainment, we still had each other. The elevator hummed as it carried me to the fourteenth floor. The office was nearly empty at this hour, most of the staff having left for the day.

In my past life, I worked myself into an early grave designing the city's most iconic skyscraper, only for my fiancé Julian to credit his first love, Serena, while I lay dying. Reborn to the exact day he demands I hand over my blueprints to 'make Serena happy,' I refuse to be his stepping stone. Instead of crying when I catch them in bed, I blast them with a fire extinguisher, cancel the engagement, and take my genius to his billionaire rival. I’m building my own empire now.

When a clinic fire trapped me and my husband’s patient, I bled on the floor, begging for help. But Julian, a brilliant surgeon, only looked at her. 'I can't let Elise's heart stop again,' he panicked, carrying the woman who received his dead first love's heart to safety. He didn't know I was pregnant. He didn't know his choice killed our baby. Now, I have exactly seven days before my secret flight to Geneva. He thinks I'm just throwing a tantrum. He has no idea I'm already gone.

Clara Vance thought her biggest problem was her late father’s crippling debt. She was wrong. After catching the eye of a lethal syndicate boss at an underground auction, her quiet life is shattered. Julian Thorne doesn't just want his money—he wants her. Kidnapped and locked in his fortress, Clara must survive a man whose obsession knows no bounds. But as the dark danger of his world closes in, Clara realizes her greatest weapon against the monster might just be his twisted love for her.