Tempt Me, Daddy (Claimed in the Dark)
She came to him for shelter. She stayed because she wanted sin.
Rain Mercer spent eighteen years in an orphanage and two more years trying to survive the real world alone. Broke, exhausted, and out of options, she returns to the matron who raised her. The answer she gets feels like a miracle: a wealthy benefactor is willing to step in, become her legal guardian, pay for her education, and give her a future.
Rain expects a distant old man.
Instead, she gets Lucien Vale.
He is devastatingly handsome, coldly controlled, and rich enough to ruin lives with a signature. He gives her safety, structure, and a home so luxurious it barely feels real. He is protective in a way she has never known. Gentle when nobody is looking. Hard on everyone but her.
At first Rain mistakes the ache in her chest for gratitude.
Then she starts noticing his hands.
His voice.
The way he says her name when she is upset.
And suddenly gratitude turns dangerous.
Rain is the first to realize it is not innocent anymore. She wants him. She wants him to stop looking at her like something precious and start looking at her like a woman. So she does the one thing she should never do.
She tempts him.
Lucien resists her with terrifying discipline. But the more she pushes, the more the perfect guardian mask begins to crack. As enemies close in, old family scandals rise, and a truth about Rain’s past threatens to rewrite everything, Lucien is forced to choose between being the good man who protects her and the ruined man who cannot let her go.
One house. One forbidden attraction. One empire built on lies.
And when the line finally breaks, it does not break gently.