Lillian Rose has never had to want for anything. She grew up behind gilded gates, wrapped in silk and the quiet authority of old money — her father’s perfect daughter, her world’s most beautiful ornament. She has been told what to wear, who to be, and how to smile since before she could understand why. She never questioned it. That was always her first mistake. When her father and Henry Pierce announce a merger of their empires, the terms are simple: Lillian will marry Rowan Pierce. She will take his name, move into his world, and — if their families have anything to say about it — give him an heir. The problem is Rowan. He is twenty-three, cold as January marble, and entirely uninterested in softening himself for anyone — least of all the spoiled, dark-eyed girl who looks at him like he’s a problem she hasn’t solved yet. He runs half of New York’s underground with his right hand and a reputation that keeps men twice his age from holding his gaze. He did not ask for a wife. He did not ask for any of this. But his father’s voice still lives in the back of his skull, and Rowan Pierce has spent his entire life learning that refusal is not an option. So he takes her. On paper. In public. In the penthouse his empire pays for and his blood built. What neither of them account for is what happens in between — the locked doors and sharp silences, the moments he almost looks at her like she’s a person and the moments she remembers that she should probably be afraid of him. The deal was business. The arrangement was cold. But Lillian has always had a talent for finding the cracks in pretty things. And Rowan has never met anyone brave enough — or foolish enough — to look.