Linnea Richter spent years wiring a crown into place—and paid the price when the man she helped make Prince declared he’d take a concubine on their wedding day. She rips off the veil, walks out, and returns to Harbor City to find her shops deserted and allies gone. But Linnea is more than a merchant bride: she is the hidden daughter of Duke Garrison Rasmussen, a warlord whose shadow can topple thrones. What follows is a fast, ruthless climb: a public humiliation that flips the court, a staged contest to choose Linnea's husband, a brilliant outsider—Ethan Finch—wins her hand and her heart, and a scheming prince, Carter Tucker, builds a web of treachery that will cost him everything. Linnea’s shops become power centers; her husband becomes a leader; together they break the rigid class order, smash manipulative nobles, and remake a kingdom that once laughed at a merchant’s daughter. This is a tale of public shaming turned into vengeance, of boardroom bargains and battlefield bargains, of a woman who refuses to be smaller than the life she built—and finally takes a throne by love, law, and ruthless strategy.
25 Chapters
