That way

"You're a good friend, Dom."

Friend.

The word should have meant something comforting.

Instead, it felt like losing.

Arabella Sterling has always been warmth in human form-loud laughter in quiet rooms, bare feet in expensive kitchens, homemade food passed across crowded tables, affection given so freely people mistake it for simplicity.

At twenty-seven, she has no interest in power, status, or the cold performance of elite society. She'd rather spend hours in bookstores, chase sunsets on the beach, or lose herself in music than play social games with wealthy people pretending to be happy.

Then there's Dominic Van Sterling.

British.
Controlled.
Untouchable.

Born into one of the most powerful old-money dynasties in Europe, Dominic was raised to value discipline over desire, restraint over emotion, and duty over everything else. Men fear him. Women want him. Entire rooms shift when he walks into them.

But Arabella has never treated him like a man people should fear.

To her, he's just Dom.
Her brother's oldest friend.
The quiet man who always remembers when she's cold.
The man who notices everything.
The man who says yes every single time she needs him.

What Arabella doesn't know is that Dominic's feelings for her stopped being harmless years ago.

And everyone can see it.

The way he watches her.
The way he touches her.
The way his composure fractures whenever she's near.

Everyone notices the way he looks at her.

Except her.

THAT WAY is a slow-burn quiet obsession romance filled with aching tension, old-money restraint, emotional intimacy, possessive longing, and a man dangerously close to losing control over the only woman he was never supposed to want.