LonelyMr
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- Parts 11
Lucian Tarquin Santos is the kind of man everyone thinks they know-a devastatingly handsome campus heartthrob, an unapologetic playboy, and the boy no girl has ever managed to keep.
As the son of renowned physician Dra. Georgina Samantha Ysabelle Santos and brilliant attorney Atty. Reign Frances Santos, Lucian grew up surrounded by power, privilege, and expectations. He was born intersex, just like Reign, who raised him to understand that his body could never make him less of a man. Yet beyond the safety of his family, Lucian learned to guard that truth carefully. His flirtatious reputation became his perfect disguise: if he never allowed anyone close enough to love him, no one could get close enough to hurt him.
Then he meets Hailey Denise Bartolome.
Hailey is the strong-willed only daughter of fierce CEO Charlee Zoraya Acardi-Bartolome and Saige Asher Bartolome. Raised by two formidable parents-one of whom, Saige, is also intersex-Hailey has always been taught to look beyond appearances and defend the dignity of those the world misunderstands.
But she has no patience for Lucian.
To Hailey, he is everything she should avoid: arrogant, reckless, dangerously charming, and incapable of taking love seriously. She refuses to admit that beneath her irritation lies an attraction she can no longer control.
Lucian does not know that Hailey may understand his truth better than anyone else ever could. Hailey does not know that behind the school's most desired playboy is a young man terrified that being truly known will mean being rejected.
As their lives become entangled, two powerful families will discover how closely their stories mirror each other. And somewhere between denial, hidden truths, and undeniable desire, Lucian and Hailey must decide whether love is still worth risking when it asks them to reveal the parts of themselves they have fought hardest to protect.
Everyone desired him-but he had never allowed himself to be known.
Until her.