In the gilded circles of New York's elite, Julian Thorne was a legend. Not for his wealth, which was vast, but for his iron-clad self-control. Cold, ascetic, a paragon of discipline—his name was synonymous with restraint. No one had ever witnessed him lose his composure. Until the night of the annual charity gala. There, under the discreet glow of crystal chandeliers, he was seen cornering a plus-sized woman against a marble column. With eyes shockingly red-rimmed, he pressed her against the wall, his voice tight with an emotion no one had ever heard from him. "Do you have any idea I've been searching for you for five years?" The rumor spread through high society like wildfire: Julian Thorne, the immovable fortress, had finally cracked. He'd mistaken a woman of over two hundred pounds for his long-lost ex-wife. And what's more, he was now spoiling her and the little rascal she’d brought with her rotten. "Daddy," his precocious child once said, looking up at him, "all the whispers say you must be blind to have fallen for Mommy." Julian's expression was glacial. "I'm not the one who's blind, sweetheart. They are." In the months that followed, a bizarre trend took hold of the city's upper crust. The pursuit of a "fuller figure" became the new chic, with debutantes and heiresses collectively gaining fifty pounds, all hoping the "blind" Mr. Thorne might finally notice them. Later that year, Julian was at a high-stakes business dinner when his wife arrived to pick him up. The other guests craned their necks, buzzing with anticipation. They were all dying to see the legendary large woman who had somehow captured the heart of the Thorne dynasty's patriarch, making him fiercely, uncharacteristically monogamous. A sleek black car pulled up. But the woman who stepped out was a vision of ethereal beauty—fair-skinned, with legs that seemed to go on for miles. A collective, silent gasp went through the onlookers. Who was this impostor? Surely, she was some audacious gold-digger about to be exiled to the social equivalent of Siberia by the real Mrs. Thorne's famously possessive husband. But then, Julian Thorne—the man who had been perfectly lucid and dangerously sharp just moments before—seemed to become helplessly intoxicated. He stumbled towards her, his imposing frame melting into a clingy embrace. "My love," he murmured, loud enough for everyone to hear, nuzzling into her neck. "I need a kiss."