To her family, she was selfish. To his, a schemer. To Alexander Hale, she was a wife he never wanted, met only with glacial contempt. They crafted a villain from the only innocent among them, blind to the devastating truth of her sacrifice. Some debts of the heart are paid in secret, and some secrets demand a price no one saw coming.
She loved him when she shouldn’t have. He realized it when it was already too late. She stayed when everyone else walked away. Then she vanished. An accident changed everything. A disappearance changed him. Some love stories don’t begin with confession— they begin with regret.
His path was never meant to be that of a knight in shining armor. Yet, bound by a dying vow and the chains of filial duty, he is forced to don the armor for a woman who shatters every ideal he ever held. She is not the bride of his dreams, but a challenge written in the stars-a living contradiction who ignites a firestorm of resentment and unwelcome desire. Now, on a journey neither asked for, he must confront the most perilous quest of all: a battle between his steadfast pride and the unexpected whispers of his own heart. Can a promise forged in obligation ever transform into a love written in destiny?