My father sold me to settle a gambling debt.

I didn't know until the man I'd been serving coffee to for two months pulled out my chair at a brunch table in Vail — with an engagement clause that had my name on it. Signed eight weeks ago. Without my knowledge. Without my consent.

My father couldn't look at me. Cole Ashford couldn't stop looking.

Cole is the CEO of Palisade and the leader of the 303 — an organization that controls more of Colorado than anyone is supposed to know about. He bought my father's debt in one night, told him the clause was worthless before the ink dried, and let him sign it anyway.

He knows my lease. My roasters. My routines. He broke into my apartment while I was in Vail and left a cup of coffee brewed exactly the way I brew it — still warm when I walked through the door.

I hated him. I hated more the way my body wouldn't agree. His voice landed behind my ribs and spread where it had no business spreading. His gaze dropped to my mouth and I felt it on my skin for hours. The most dangerous man in Denver looked at me like I was the only thing his empire couldn't buy.

I built Treeline from three years of tips and a lease in Union Station. Now I'm discovering the ground beneath everything I built belongs to a man who doesn't take what he wants — he builds a world where what he wants walks in on its own.

Every touch he takes gives him nothing. Granite and ice.

Every touch I choose to give him changes everything.

He thinks he claimed me. He's wrong. The only version of me worth having walks in on her own.
And I haven't decided yet.
⸻
Slow burn · Enemies to lovers · He falls first · She decides last · Arranged marriage · Possessive hero · Strong female lead · Mafia · CEO

I drove down the west side of the divide with a cup my mother made on the seat beside me and a book she folded twenty-one years ago on the seat beside that.


Chapter 60 - The Orchard