Raya had been staring at the same paragraph of her anatomy notes for nearly half an hour without absorbing a single sentence.The small apartment was quiet except for the low hum of the old refrigerator and the occasional creak of the building settling around her. Outside, the city continued its usual noise. Inside, the numbers kept stacking higher. Four months of unpaid rent. Tuition due again next month. Her shifts at the café barely covered food and transport, let alone everything else. She was twenty, an orphan, and running out of ways to keep the walls from closing in.A firm knock at the door pulled her out of the spiral.Raya stood, smoothed her oversized sweater down over her hips, and opened it. Lucian stood on the other side, tall and composed as always. Soft brown hair, ocean-blue eyes, the kind of face and body that made most women look twice without meaning to. At thirty-eight he was the definition of an eligible bachelor—rich, well-dressed, quietly powerful. To Raya he h
Last Updated : 2026-09-03 Read more