A world of his own...
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In the world of rare art and rarer fortunes, Fleur Bellamy has never sought the spotlight. A young art history student with a quiet brilliance, she is content studying masterpieces, untouched by the affairs of high society. The whispers of old money and the weight of legacy have always belonged to others-until she crosses paths with Saint Valmont.
A reclusive art collector and professor of impeccable taste, Saint is an enigma draped in wealth and restraint. The heir to an aristocratic French dynasty, his life is a carefully composed masterpiece-one that has no space for love. His devotion belongs to the past, to the memory of a wife lost to time. Yet, when he first sees Fleur, something fractures. She is not a woman meant for his world, but something about her lingers, unraveling the silence he has spent years perfecting.
Saint resists. He watches. He waits. Until watching is no longer enough.
A calculated invitation-a private lesson for his son-becomes the first move in a quiet game only he knows he is playing. Fleur, unaware of the design behind their meeting, steps into his home, into his curated world of hushed galleries and shadowed desires. The tension is unspoken, but it simmers, each encounter drawing her deeper into his orbit. Saint is cold, unreadable, yet his presence wraps around her like silk-delicate, inescapable.
But he is not the only one who refuses to let her go.
In a world where art is coveted, love is currency, and obsession is a language spoken behind gilded doors, Fleur must learn the price of being desired by men who never learned how to let go.
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Cloaked in her essence
Marcelo DeVille is a man on the edge-his perfect life with his fiancée, Pamela Green, crumbling under the weight of his own anger and frustration. When Pamela suggests counseling, Marcelo, fed up with the endless cycle, agrees-if only to appease her. Little does he know, the session with Isabella Pressly will be anything but ordinary.
Isabella, a seasoned psychiatrist with two decades of experience, is used to the emotional minefields of her patients. But Marcelo is different. He's rude, dismissive, and locked inside his own world of resistance. His defiance, paired with a disturbing intensity in his gaze, forces Isabella into a dangerous game she never expected to play.
With each session, their fiery clashes become more than just therapeutic sparring. Marcelo's fury meets Isabella's unwavering calmness in a tumultuous dance of desire and tension. The attraction between them is undeniable, but so is the line they're both walking-a line that could destroy everything they've worked for.
As their connection deepens, so does the pull of forbidden temptation, and the real world outside their sessions becomes a prison they can't escape. Both are trapped by the consequences of their desires, unsure of how long they can keep up the charade.
But temptation is a dangerous game, and when it comes to desire, some boundaries are meant to be crossed. The question isn't if they'll break, but when-and what it will cost them.
[The Ninth book of The V series]
A Stand-alone novel.