LOVE WAS NEVER THE PROMISEHe promised her father he would protect her.He never promised to love her.But some promises have a way of becoming something neither person can escape.Six years ago, Daniel Cross stood beside a dying man and made a promise that would quietly change the course of his entire life.He had no idea that the promise would eventually lead him to Elara—a woman he had never met, a woman he would spend years watching from the shadows without her ever knowing his name. And Elara had no idea that her carefully built life was about to change in an instant, when a stranger would become a familiar face, a familiar face would become a friend, and that friend would become the protector she never knew she needed.Neither of them expected the man watching from a distance to become the man standing beside her.Neither expected protection to become trust.Trust to become desire.And desire to become something far more dangerous...Love.