The first time I stood in that penthouse, I wasnât meant to belong.
I was wearing a borrowed dress and shoes that didnât fit, looking up at a man who barely looked at me,like I was just another name in a deal, a placeholder bride for a business arrangement that shouldn't involve hearts or history.
But the air between us wasnât silent.
It was charged.
He was too calm, too calculated. The type of man who could destroy a life with one signature.
And I was too broken to pretend I didnât care.
"Donât fall in love," he had said, sliding the contract across the glass table.
"As if anyone could love someone like you," Iâd answered without blinking.
But I lied.
Because I did fall.
Not in a way people write about in fairy tales.
Not the soft, sweet, innocent kind.
No. I fell with bruises, with betrayal, with the weight of a name I didnât even know I carried.
I was never just Aveline Rowan.
I was a ghost from a past they tried to eraseâ
A buried bloodline.
A threat to everything the Sinclairs built.
And heâLucien Sinclairâwas the only one who could either destroy me...
or choose to burn with me.
So hereâs my story.
Not of how I met a man and became his wife.
But how I became his equal.
And made him choose between power and love...
in a world where both were never meant to coexist.