Dalia030
Three years. One contract. One rule:
Don't fall in love.
At twenty-one, Coco is already exhausted by life-burnt out by expectations, betrayal, and the constant ache of pretending she's okay. Love feels pointless. Trust feels dangerous. Survival is the only thing she's good at anymore.
Then she signs the contract.
Dhruv Oberoi has just turned eighteen.
An orphan. An heir. A name whispered with fear.
Raised within the shadows of a brutal underworld empire, Dhruv was born into violence he never chose. Cold, controlled, and impossible to read, he wears cruelty like armor while silently drowning beneath the weight of a legacy built on power and blood.
When his ruthless grandfather, Mr. Hunt, forces him into a contract relationship to protect the family image, Coco becomes another move in a dangerous game.
Three years together.
Public appearances.
Perfect lies.
No attachments.
Simple.
Until it stops feeling fake.
Because Coco begins to see the boy hidden beneath Dhruv's sharp edges-the loneliness, the rage, the grief he buries so deeply it threatens to consume him. And Dhruv, despite every instinct warning him otherwise, becomes addicted to the one woman who refuses to fear him.
She is older, sharper, harder to break.
He is younger, but carries darkness far beyond his years.
With Thomson-Dhruv's fiercely loyal guardian-trying desperately to keep everything from collapsing, the line between duty and desire begins to blur.
In a world ruled by power, secrets, and violence, love is not salvation.
It is destruction wearing beautiful clothes.