Velvet shackles

Ivy Hart has spent the last three years surviving on tips from a rundown bar and the occasional stolen meal. When her dead father's massive gambling debt finally comes due, the man who shows up to collect is Elias Thorne cold, powerful, and known for never forgiving a single cent.

She has nothing left to offer except herself.

Ivy makes a desperate deal: one year of her body, her obedience, and her silence in exchange for the debt being wiped clean and a lifetime guarantee she will never go hungry again. Elias accepts with the same detached calm he uses for every business transaction.

He moves her into his penthouse under strict rules. She is not a guest. She is property until the year is up.

What Ivy doesn't know is that her father didn't just lose money, he stole something Elias has been waiting years to punish someone for. The contract was never meant to be fair. And the longer Ivy stays inside those gilded walls, the more the lines between ownership, obsession, and something far more dangerous begin to blur.

Survival becomes desire.

Desire becomes hate.

Hate becomes the kind of love that ruins people.