She thought her life could be measured in routines—dance class, exams, birthday candles—until the day her father fell and the world rewrote the rules. Hadlee Oliveira wakes up on her twentieth birthday to two disasters: her father's public disgrace and a phone call from Cillian Bass, the cold, impossibly handsome heir of Bass Industries who shows up at her door offering a single, impossible bargain—shelter in exchange for silence. She accepts the shelter and wakes up with a new name, a new address, and a single burning question: why did her father take the fall? Instead of answers, Hadlee finds stranger threats, a ledger that goes missing, a nightlife job that turns dangerous, and a billionaire who keeps protecting her with equal parts tenderness and iron will. As they chase bank transfers, anonymous threats, and a name that shouldn’t be implicated, the line between guardian and captor blurs—until truth and desire collide. Can she clear her father's name without becoming collateral in a game run by men with more power than conscience? And if Cillian is the shield she needs, will she survive the cost of trusting him?

14 Chapters