Some rules are meant to be followed. Some rules are made to be broken. My brother's one rule was simple: stay away from his best friend. I thought it would be easy. I kept my head down, focused on school, and avoided him as much as I could. But rules have a funny way of bending when the person you're not supposed to notice starts noticing you. He's everything I'm not-reckless, confident, magnetic. He's the boy my brother warned me about, the one whose gaze makes my heart race and my thoughts go completely haywire. And somehow, he's always there: teasing me, challenging me, protecting me, and pushing me closer to a line I never intended to cross. Every glance, every accidental touch, every moment alone feels like a temptation I shouldn't give in to. But as I start to see the cracks in his bad-boy exterior, the side of him only I seem to notice, I realize staying away is impossible. Falling for him wasn't supposed to happen. Breaking the rules wasn't supposed to feel this good. And loving him? That's the most dangerous rule of all. **He's my brother's best friend... and he's off-limits.**

Saanvi drifts through the grand halls of her own home like a ghost, her presence barely acknowledged, her thoughts unheard. Every corner is polished, every detail perfect-but it all feels hollow when the man she married treats her like an object, a name on a contract rather than a person with a heart and dreams of her own. Days stretch into silence, broken only by curt nods and the faint hum of his indifferent presence. Vihaan is distant, unyielding, and cold, yet there's a magnetic pull to him she can't ignore. Behind his flawless exterior lies a storm she senses but cannot reach, a wall she doesn't yet know how to breach. And though their marriage began as an arrangement, Saanvi feels the faintest spark of curiosity, a whisper that maybe-just maybe-this icy husband harbors secrets that could melt even the coldest of hearts.