Talia I see the world in patterns—not to calculate my distance, but to understand the people no one else sees. I don't build walls. I build bridges. Even when it costs me. So when the Society offers me a contract, one year as the wife of legacy billionaire Stellan Rothwell, I say yes. His empire is fracturing from within. Someone close to him is leaking secrets, and I’m here to find the fault line before everything collapses. I wasn’t hired to love him. I was hired to anchor him, protect him, and leave when the work is done. But the longer I stay, the harder it is to pretend that saving him doesn’t feel a little like saving myself. Stellan I didn’t ask for a wife. I asked for containment. The Society promised me someone strategic—polished, detached. A safeguard, nothing more. So, they sent Talia Cerny—perceptive, unshakable, disarming in ways I didn’t see coming. She studies without judgment. Moves through my world like she was always meant to find the cracks and hold them together. I built my life around control. Around silence. But now, all I want is to hear her voice. She came to protect the illusion of my stability. Instead, she’s becoming the only real thing I have left.