A brilliant scholar chasing the truth… Dr. Sophia Vitale has dedicated her career to proving gladiators were more than bloodsport. When she’s granted unprecedented access to study living Roman gladiators at Second Chance Sanctuary, it’s the opportunity she’s been waiting for—and one misstep could cost her everything. She never expected to meet a man who unraveled her this completely. Copper-haired, magnetic, and devastatingly perceptive, he unsettles her in ways no research ever has. His focus is deliberate. His presence dismantles her hard-won control. And the way he watches her—like he’s memorizing every reaction—turns measured interviews into encounters that leave her breathless and off-balance. She came for answers. She didn’t expect desire. …a showman hiding deeply buried scars… They called him the Jester because he made violence look like art. Charm was his shield. Entertainment was his armor. It kept him alive in the arena—until the day he was frozen beneath the ice, where he slept for two thousand years while the world moved on without him. But Sophia isn’t tempted by the performance. She wants what survives when the mask falls. Her dangerous attention strips him of defenses he’s spent a lifetime perfecting. And the way she looks at him—as if he’s more than spectacle, more than survival—awakens needs he buried long before the ice took him. …and a love that demands they feel everything. When restraint finally fractures, passion ignites. Study becomes seduction. Distance collapses into need. And every intimate touch dares them to stop performing and surrender the armor that’s kept them safe. Because some connections demand more than control. They demand surrender. Thawed Flavius is a scorching slow-burn, emotionally rich, hurt/comfort, opposites-attract, time-portal romance where a man who lived by performance learns that love begins when the mask comes off.