Opposites

Damon Amir Ward was born with a silver spoon and blood on the handle.

On paper, he's the impeccably groomed CEO of Ward Global Holdings, the man whose family name is engraved on half the buildings in the city. In reality, the Ward legacy is stitched together with favors, threats, and deals made in the shadows. Damon has spent his life balancing two worlds: the polished boardrooms that worship his last name and the quiet mob empire that demands his loyalty.

Soleil Imani Leveaux wants nothing to do with men like him.

She's the warm light at the center of The Cellar, an underground speakeasy hidden beneath one of the Ward family's oldest estates. By night she mixes drinks, reads people like tarot, and paints scenes in her head she'll never have time to put on canvas. By day she's hustling rent, dodging her mother's past, and promising herself she'll never fall for power dressed in a suit.

When Damon walks into The Cellar to inspect his investment and fires a bartender on the spot, Soleil steps in front of him and tells him exactly what she thinks.

No one talks to Damon Ward like that.
No one looks at Soleil Leveaux the way he does.

From that moment, their lives twist around each other-two opposites orbiting the same slow-burning fire. He's cold control and silent danger; she's messy emotion and honest heat. He shouldn't want the girl who questions everything he is. She shouldn't crave the man whose family may be the reason her own lost everything.

As secrets rise from the past, Damon and Soleil have to decide what weighs more: the history written in their bloodlines or the future they can feel every time their eyes meet across the bar.

In a city where legacies are built on lies and love can get you killed, some connections burn too bright to walk away from.

Sometimes the ones who shouldn't fit
...are the only ones who do.