Starlight

Michelle Brown had spent years convincing herself that Alessio Giovanni-her brother's best friend, the quiet man who barely spoke-was someone she'd eventually get over.

She was wrong.

When they were children and everyone else dismissed her, talked over her, made her feel invisible-he stayed. He listened. In a world that made her feel like too much, he was the only one who made her feel seen.

Now, years later, Michelle has fallen back into the same darkness that's haunted her since she was thirteen. She tears herself apart in ways no one else ever could, seeing flaws where others see beauty.

But Alessio has always seen her. Really seen her.

He's noticed the exhaustion she hides, the self-hatred she carries, the way she shrinks when the world becomes too heavy. He's been drawn to her since they were kids-that pull growing stronger as she grew into herself, bolder and undeniably captivating in ways that made distance impossible.

Now he's done staying silent. Done keeping his distance.

She's gotten under his skin in ways that make him willing to cross every line he's drawn, to say things he's never said to anyone-all to pull her out of the darkness and make her understand what he's always known.

She's his starlight. Burning, radiant, impossible to look away from. A light that cuts through his shadows and makes everything else irrelevant.

And he'll do whatever it takes to make her see herself the way he does.