BOOK TITLE Ashes of Obsession GENRE Billionaire Romance TROUPE Forbidden Romance SETTING Europe BLURB Ellen Dumas’s world shatters the night she loses her mentor under mysterious circumstances. Determined to uncover the truth, she soon realizes the walls around her life are built on secrets, and someone wants her silenced. Ardito Martinelli is the enigmatic professor transferred to her university with uncanny timing, arriving on the eve of the funeral. With a sharp mind and an authority that commands fear and fascination, he becomes both a guide and a threat to Ellen’s growing suspicions. But Ardito is no ordinary academic. Beneath the polished lectures lies a ruthless billionaire with a vendetta, haunted by a brutal past that left him with a condition he cannot escape. When their paths collide, Ellen discovers the professor is more than untouchable. He is dangerous, forbidden, and hiding truths that could destroy them both. Together they must choose between exposing the darkness or surrendering to it. EXPOSITION Ellen Dumas lived in the shadow of loss. Her mother’s death left her with a father who treated her like an obligation rather than a daughter. The only warmth she knew came from Clara Veyron, the professor who became her mentor and the closest thing to family she had. Within the quiet corners of the university, Ellen built a fragile sense of belonging, never realizing how much of her life depended on Clara’s presence. Far from her world, Ardito Martinelli lived behind walls of his own making. A billionaire hidden beneath the guise of academia, he wore intellect and discipline like armor. His life was built on vengeance, his past scarred by betrayal and abuse that left him unable to bear the simplest human touch. To outsiders he was brilliance, wealth, and control; to himself he was a man sharpening his silence into a weapon. Both lived in worlds shaped by absence. Neither yet knew that Clara’s death would bring them together, binding grief and vengeance into a path neither of them had chosen. INCITING INCIDENT The night of Clara Veyron’s funeral shatters Ellen’s world. To everyone else, the professor’s sudden death is explained away as an unfortunate accident. To Ellen, it feels staged, unnatural, almost forced. The woman who once guided her with such calm certainty is gone without warning, and the silence left in her place is unbearable. When Ellen is given an encrypted letter Clara wrote before her death, everything she thought she knew begins to unravel. The letter hints at betrayal within the very institution Clara served, warning Ellen in cryptic language about shadows that walk among the respected. At the same time, the university buzzes with news of a sudden appointment. A professor transferred under urgency, one whose reputation precedes him. Ardito Martinelli steps into the halls Clara once filled, his presence commanding fear and fascination alike. To the students, he is brilliance wrapped in arrogance, his lectures magnetic, his authority absolute. To Ellen, his timing feels suspicious. He arrives the moment Clara vanishes, almost as if her death created space for him. What Ellen doesn’t yet know is that Ardito carries his own agenda. His transfer is no coincidence. He has come to this place for reasons tied not to knowledge but to revenge. The funeral and the professor’s arrival form the fracture line in Ellen’s life. From that moment, nothing around her will feel safe again. RISING ACTION Ellen’s grief sharpens into obsession. Clara’s notes, half-burned or locked away, whisper of hidden research tied to the university’s upper ranks. Names appear in the margins, dates without context, phrases that sound less like lessons and more like warnings. Each time Ellen tries to pursue the trail, doors close. Professors scold her, friends urge her to let it go, and anonymous threats appear in her inbox. She begins to feel hunted, her mentor’s death pressing against her in ways no one else seems to notice. At the same time, Ardito’s presence dominates the university. Students flock to his lectures, women linger too long after class, yet a strange unease surrounds him. No one truly dares approach, not beyond shallow admiration. Ellen watches him closely, unsettled by the sharpness of his gaze, the way his authority lingers like a weight on the room. Against her better judgment, she starts to sense something beneath his surface, a shadow in his eyes that mirrors her own pain. Ardito notices her too. Despite his condition, despite his hatred of closeness, Ellen unsettles him.Her questions cut too deep, her defiance stirs his guarded calm, and her grief reminds him of wounds he has never closed. For years,he has lived for vengeance, his heart encased in iron. Yet Ellen becomes a disruption he cannot dismiss. As Ellen digs further, she learns fragments of Ardito’s past without knowing the whole truth. Rumors, whispers, and strange documents link his family name to scandals long buried. At the same time.