​forcedproximity Stories

Elena Valerius was born into the light of the elite, but her heart belonged to the shadows of the docks-and to Julian, a man with nothing to his name but a wrench and a promise. When her family's staggering debts to a criminal underworld surface, Elena is sold like a prize to Adrian Almonte, a billionaire with the soul of a mercenary and the power to erase her past. ​What began as a desperate sacrifice to save the man she loved spirals into a lethal game of chess. From the burning shipyards of Aguazul to a blood-stained cathedral wedding, Elena must navigate a world where her husband is her jailer, her lover is a ghost, and her own family are the architects of her ruin. ​In the final, suffocating darkness of a high-security vault, Elena realizes that survival doesn't mean escaping the cage-it means taking the keys. She began as a pawn in a war between men; she ended as the one who controls the board.

A talented designer must choose between her safe, uncomplicated world and a dangerous man whose heart is as fortified as his home. ​Elara Belladonna, a designer who believes a house should have a soul, is given the opportunity of a lifetime: to renovate the brutalist, oceanfront mansion of the reclusive billionaire, Dante Volpe. From their first meeting, Elara senses Dante is a man of contradictions. His business is cold and precise, but his private world is a sanctuary of old books and vintage jazz, hinting at a hidden soul. ​But as Elara chips away at the mansion's cold facade, she uncovers the chilling truth behind its minimalist design: it's not a home, but a fortress built to protect a man from a world of violence and shadows. When she discovers a secret panic room, a stark, concrete void, she realizes the house isn't just a reflection of Dante's personality-it's a testament to his dangerous reality. ​Torn between the simple, loving man in her life, Leo, and her growing, inexplicable pull toward Dante, Elara must make an impossible choice. Can she save a man who is so afraid of love that he's built his life on the principle that it's a weakness? Or will her desire to bring light into his world lead her down a path of darkness she may never escape? ​This is a story of two opposing worlds colliding, a dangerous want, and a desperate attempt to prove that a house can be more than just a fortress-it can be a home.