Clara Presley is the queen of autonomy, a self-help phenomenon who built an empire on the philosophy of independence. But even the strongest walls have structural flaws, and John Carrington is a specialist in finding them.
A world-renowned psychologist with a debonair British veneer, Carrington doesn’t just study human behavior; he deconstructs it. When their paths first collide in the neon haze of Las Vegas, Clara’s attraction to Carrington is a singular lapse in judgment. A year later, it’s a life sentence.
Now, Clara is bound to him by a vow she can’t remember and a physical magnetism she can’t escape. Trapped in a marriage that is less a union and more a psychological siege, she is caught between a heart that craves his protection and a gut that screams he is a sophisticated, predatory danger.
Carrington is determined to use his clinical expertise to curate Clara’s life into his own version of perfection. But Clara is his intellectual equal. She decodes his gambits, challenges his meticulous control, and refuses to submit—except in the darkness, where his intensity seduces her into a temporary, treacherous truce.
In this explosive game of cerebral chess, Clara must find the exit before she is absorbed into Carrington’s design. But how do you outrun a man who has mapped your every move?
