Xavier was darkness incarnate—sinfully magnetic, dangerously alluring, a living temptation wrapped in tailored suits and ringed by the wreckage of discarded conquests. He was everything your mother warned you against: decadent, intoxicating, utterly irresistible. Maya craved light. Xavier demanded her. She'd escaped a hellish childhood—a stepfather consumed by addiction, a mother chasing her next high, a fifteen-year-old girl left to fend for herself. Survival had hardened her into someone who believed in simple dreams: a devoted husband, a home with a white picket fence, a loyal dog, three beautiful children. A normal life. A real happy ending. Then her supposed soulmate shattered her illusions, caught red-handed with her best friend. Devastated and reckless, Maya surrendered to impulse, inviting a mysterious stranger into her bed for one unforgettable night. She woke humiliated, breathless, and haunted by the intensity in his ice-blue eyes—especially when he'd reacted with shock to discovering her inexperience. Through a friend's connection, Maya lands her dream job: personal assistant to the country's most powerful CEO. The moment she walks into his office, her stomach drops. It's him. The stranger. The man she's desperately tried to forget. Xavier is nothing like the stable, dependable partner she envisions. He's calculating, commanding, impossibly arrogant—a brooding billionaire accustomed to getting everything he wants. She's reduced to reminding him of his mother's birthday and delivering roses with ice-cold rejection notes to his rotating cast of conquests. But Xavier doesn't accept defeat. He's set his sights on one woman, and he will stop at nothing to make her his.