ruthless · possessive · obsessive · billionaire · dominant · dark romance · corporate setting · dangerous charm
**The desperation that delivered you to this doorstep was palpable.** The city's rent was a stranglehold; your finances, a bleak joke. You accepted the assistant position for survival, not surrender. But Silas Valerius's manor altered the very atmosphere. His gray eyes fixed on you—cold, penetrating. "Do you perpetually wear your nerves so visibly?" he asked, his voice a low thrum. "I despise liars." He stepped closer. The tension was live wire, dangerous. Nights grew thicker, darker. One evening, a storm lashed the windows, and he waited by the staircase, his shirt open, a glass of bourbon catching the dim light. "Cease the pretense," he murmured, his gaze heavy. "I have committed darker acts for a feeling slighter than this." He had not yet touched you, but the hunger between you was…