Beneath the Ashes

Ira Sehgal was never supposed to end up in the Vale family's home.

At thirteen, after losing her parents in a tragic accident, she was placed in an orphanage program that was meant to send her to a different host family in the UK. But a clerical error changed everything. Instead of a middle-class couple in Manchester, she was sent to Edward and Helena Vale-a family of wealth, power, and secrets.

They were going to send her back.

Then Ronan Vale, their son and heir, told them not to.

For years, Ira and Ronan existed in a world neither of them fully understood-not as siblings, never as strangers, something dangerously in between. He was her first everything: her first touch, her first love, her first heartbreak. Until five years ago, when she vanished without a word.

Now, at twenty-three, Ira has built a new life in London.

Then she sees him.

Ronan Vale.

Older. Colder. Staring at her like he never stopped looking.

He doesn't force her back into his world. He lets it happen piece by piece. A job that pulls her closer. A connection she can't escape. A past she can't erase.

Ira thought leaving meant freedom.

But when she uncovers the truth-when she finds out that her parents' deaths weren't an accident at all but a consequence of the Vale family's negligence and greed-everything she thought she knew shatters.

Because the Vales didn't take her in by mistake.

They took her in to atone.

And Ronan?

Ronan knew nothing.

Now, with betrayal sinking its claws into both of them, he has a choice-let her go for good, or prove that no matter how deep the fire burns, she was always meant to be his.