I never talked about love with Charles. Yet we did everything lovers might do. Every intimate act, every stolen moment behind closed office doors, without ever giving our relationship a name. It worked for us, for a long time. Until a new assistant started working by his side. And suddenly, I found myself being asked to step back. I am no longer getting small gifts all the time from him. I had to give up the projects I lead for the whole year. I need to give up that quiet, invisible position beside him that I had taken for years. Then one afternoon, I walked into his office and saw Charles who used to be so critical, so exacting in all things—calmly drinking a cup of instant coffee. It had been handed to him by the new assistant, a girl with bright eyes. And he drank it. He didn’t even flinch. In that moment, something inside me quietly unraveled. All the dignity I had pieced together over the years, the boundaries I’d convinced myself were acceptable, the feelings I’d taught myself to mute—none of it seemed to matter anymore.

At fourteen, Nina has already learned the most important rule of survival: never mistake being wanted for being loved. After four years at St. Catherine’s residential home, she has stopped hoping for a family. In four more years, she’ll be free—and freedom, however uncertain, is the only future she truly wants. Then Vivian Whitmore walks through the door. Beautiful, privileged, and dangerously accustomed to getting whatever she wants, Vivian is the treasured granddaughter of one of America’s most powerful families. She takes one look at Nina and decides she wants her too. Suddenly, Nina is pulled from institutional care and into the dazzling world of the Whitmores: a sprawling Virginia estate, political influence, inherited wealth, buried scandals, and a family whose name can open almost any door. At first, it feels like rescue. A bedroom of her own. New clothes. Protection. People who call her family. But in the Whitmore world, nothing is given without consequence. Vivian’s affection carries an unsettling possessiveness. Her brothers have secrets of their own. And the deeper Nina is drawn into the family, the harder it becomes to tell the difference between devotion and control, protection and imprisonment, love and ownership. Nina has spent her entire life dreaming of belonging somewhere. Now she may have to decide how much of herself she is willing to lose to belong to them.

On the day I was sent to the enemy kingdom as a hostage, Charles came to see me off. He stood before the carriage, dressed in imperial robes, and said, “Wait for me. I will rescue you.” I looked at him in silence. What came to mind was not his promise, but my father’s final breath. That day, Charles and I had knelt beside my father’s sickbed. He held my hand before the dying king and swore that I would be his only queen. But now, his beloved stood beside him. His throne was secure. His kingdom was in his hands. And the ambition in his eyes was brighter than any love he had once given me. In the end, the young man I loved had become a cold-hearted emperor.