Celestia Montemayor, a young woman born into a life of luxury, is bound by duty, honor, and the weight of a marriage arranged long before she could truly understand love. With a fiancé who treats her as nothing more than an obligation, she feels the suffocating pressure of family expectations. But all of that begins to change when she meets Lorenzo-an ordinary man who offers her something she's never known: a genuine connection, a love that doesn't come with conditions.
As Celestia navigates the complexities of duty, her heart pulls her in a direction she never expected. Torn between the man she's promised to and the one who makes her feel truly alive, she finds herself standing at the crossroads of two worlds-one defined by obligation and the other by desire.
In a journey filled with self-discovery, heartbreak, and the courage to choose her own path, Celestia must decide what is worth more: the life she's always known or the love she's only just begun to understand. But fate has its own plans, and not everything is as it seems. Will Celestia's heart find the happiness it craves, or will the promises of the past shackle her to a future she never wanted?
As Claire aims to leave her oppressive stepfamily behind, she befriends Zion. Will he be her ticket to freedom or a distraction in achieving her dreams?
*****
Claire Olsen has had a crush on Zion Petrakis since the first time she laid eyes on him, but he never noticed, instead only having eyes on the school's it girl, Maddie Jennings. Knowing she couldn't compete with Maddie, Claire hid her feelings for Zion, satisfied with admiring him from afar. However, when a series of events led Claire closer to Zion, her feelings for him grew from infatuation to love. And despite fighting hard to keep her feelings contained by distancing herself from Zion, he was determined to show her that he's earned a spot in her life.
[[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]