In The Heart of Gleaming Clouds

Talia was never part of Ares Krestov's plan. That was a fact she told herself every night when the house went quiet and the questions started crowding her head.

Then he bought the land. The exact piece of earth her house stood on. He hadn't meant to. At least, that's what his silence said when he showed up with an offer she had no business accepting. He didn't want to get involved. He didn't want to want her. But Ares Krestov was not a man who did things halfway, and when he offered, he offered everything.

Now Talia is standing at the part of her life where it all hurts. Where every choice feels like a debt she can't pay.

He gave her a way out. A way to survive.

But survival, she was learning, always came with a price.

She didn't know if she still had a reason to say no.

She didn't know if she was strong enough to walk away from the trap he had laid so carefully, piece by piece.

And she was starting to fear that her heart was already tangled in it-knotted in the same threads he used to tie her to him.