Aria_Tarin
Rayna thought she knew what her life would be
But fate had other plans.
Rayna Malik was supposed to marry Aiden Hawkins.
Instead, she's standing over an empty grave.
Aiden reckless, golden, and utterly unforgettable-vanishes on an MI6 mission and doesn't come home. The agency calls it a tragedy. Rayna calls it the moment her life ends... and something else quietly begins.
Because Aiden left her with a secret. One only the Hawkins namr can truly protect.
Their solution is as cold as it is necessary:
Marry Elijah Hawkins instead.
Elijah is everything his younger brother wasn't. Controlled where Aiden was wild. Silent where he was loud. MI6's most disciplined asset. A man who has spent his entire life following rules and one of those rules has always been: she's his.
Now Rayna is living in his house, wearing his ring, and waking up in a life that was never meant to be hers. Their arrangement is supposed to be, Clean. Emotionless.
It isn't.
Grief blurs. Lines cross. The man she thought was carved from ice becomes the only person who can soothe the storm inside her. But the shadows that took Aiden aren't done, and secrets tied to his last mission start bleeding into the life Rayna is desperately trying to rebuild.
When danger closes in and the past refuses to stay buried, Rayna is forced to face a devastating truth:
She may have been Aiden's future
...but somewhere along the way, Elijah became home.
Because the real question isn't just who she loves...
It's whether her heart is a betrayal or the only honest thing she has left.
Read this if you love:
Marriage of convenience... with your "dead" fiancΓ©'s older brother
Angsty, emotional slow burn
Stoic, self-sacrificing hero who feels everything but hides it
Heavy themes (grief, trauma, healing) handled with tenderness
"I will burn the world to keep you safe" energy
Forced closeness
Messy, complicated siblings: golden-boy older brother & reckless younger one