LOGINHe was never supposed to notice her.She was never supposed to want him.Elena Paige has spent years playing the perfect role best friend, scholarship girl, grateful guest in a world of wealth that was never meant to be hers. Julian Vance is untouchable: powerful, controlled, devastatingly dangerous. He is also her best friend’s father.One snowstorm.One night trapped behind locked doors.One choice that can never be undone.What begins as a forbidden pull spirals into something darker an obsession built on secrets, silence, and possession. Julian doesn’t just want Elena. He claims her. And Elena quickly learns that desire is far more terrifying when it’s returned by a man who always gets what he wants.As guilt, power, and control blur into twisted intimacy, Elena must decide what frightens her more: losing everything she has, or surrendering completely to the man who could destroy her.
View MoreBy the time night fully settled over the Sharma haveli, the courtyard had transformed into something almost otherworldly.Hundreds of tiny lights had been strung along the balconies and pillars, glowing like captured stars. Oil lamps flickered along the stone pathways, their flames dancing softly in the warm evening air.At the center of the courtyard stood the mandap.Four carved wooden pillars held up a canopy draped in thousands of marigolds and white orchids. The flowers hung in thick garlands, their bright colors glowing beneath the golden lights.It looked beautiful.Sacred.And yet something about the atmosphere felt strangely tense, like the calm before a storm.At the heart of the mandap, the sacred fire burned.The flames rose steadily from the copper havan kund, fed by ghee and sandalwood offered by the priest. Smoke curled upward in pale ribbons, carrying the scent of incense through the courtyard.Guests filled every available space.Relatives sat cross-legged on white cu
The sound reached the neighborhood long before the cars did.At first it was distant just the faint thump of drums echoing through the warm Delhi morning.Then the music grew louder.Dhol beats rolled through the narrow streets like thunder, bouncing off old brick walls and crowded balconies. Brass instruments joined in, blaring bright celebratory notes that seemed to vibrate through the entire neighborhood.Children ran into the street first.They knew the sound.“The baraat!” one of them shouted excitedly.Within minutes, the entire lane outside the Sharma haveli was alive.Neighbors leaned over their balconies to watch the spectacle unfold. Shopkeepers stepped out from their storefronts. Aunties who had sworn they would stay home somehow appeared at the gates within seconds, adjusting their saris as they hurried closer.Weddings were always public events in Delhi.But this wedding was something else entirely.This was the wedding of the mysterious foreign billionaire and the girl w
The morning of the wedding arrived beneath a sky that felt too heavy.The air over Delhi carried an oppressive heat, thick and unmoving, as though the city itself was holding its breath. Even the early sunlight seemed dimmed behind a haze of dust and humidity.Inside the Sharma haveli, the quiet of the night had vanished.The house had become a whirlwind.Relatives rushed through corridors carrying trays of flowers and jewelry. Aunties shouted instructions from one end of the courtyard to the other. The sound of bangles clinking and footsteps echoing across marble floors created a constant rhythm of chaos.Priests had already arrived and were preparing the sacred fire in the courtyard. Marigold garlands were replaced and straightened. Musicians tested their instruments near the entrance gate.It was the kind of controlled madness that only a wedding could produce.But in the center of the storm, Elena sat in silence.Her room had been transformed overnight into something resembling a
The haveli was finally quiet.For the first time in days, the constant noise of wedding preparations had faded into silence. The courtyard that had been overflowing with relatives, music, and laughter now lay still beneath the moonlight.Most of the family had collapsed into exhausted sleep after the long Haldi ceremony.Even the fairy lights had been switched off, leaving only the soft glow of a few lanterns flickering along the corridors.Outside the walls, Delhi never truly slept. The distant hum of traffic drifted through the warm night air, mixing with the chirping of crickets and the occasional bark of a stray dog somewhere down the street.Inside her room, Elena sat on the edge of the bed.Her skin still carried the faint golden tint of turmeric from the Haldi ceremony. No matter how many times she had washed her hands, traces of the yellow paste remained along the edges of her fingers.Her wedding was only hours away.Six hours.By sunrise, she would be standing before a pries












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