OWNED BY MIDNIGHT

The first time Niccolò De Rossi saw her, the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

He had stepped out of his hotel with the easy arrogance of a man who ruled empires-steel and glass bent to his will, fortunes rose and fell at the flick of his signature. Women usually noticed. They always noticed.

But she didn't.

The girl by the fountain had ink smudges on her fingers, wind tangling her hair, sunlight caught in her laugh. She was sketching as if the marble lions before her were secret lovers confessing sins only she could hear. She didn't glance up at the sleek black car waiting for him, or at the doorman rushing to open doors.

She only looked up when she felt him watching. And then-God help him-her eyes met his.

Not hunger. Not awe. Not even recognition.

Just curiosity, followed by the kind of dismissal no one had dared offer Niccolò De Rossi in years.

It was supposed to be nothing. A fleeting look, a stranger's indifference. But instead, it burned through his veins, hotter than any deal, any conquest, any forbidden touch he'd ever taken.

For the first time, the billionaire who had everything discovered something he could not command.

And in that instant, Niccolò knew two things:
1. He would find her again.
2. When he did, he would not let her go-not from his bed, not from his life, not from the very bones of his existence