There was a reason Elara had never been close to a man in this world—and it wasn't innocence.
In her first life, back when she was a CEO in a cutthroat industry, she had learned early that being a young woman at the top made her a target. Not just professionally. Not just in boardrooms or negotiation tables where men underestimated her numbers and overestimated their own. No—the danger went further than that. It followed her into social spaces, into the dimly lit corners of business dinners where champagne flutes were passed a little too eagerly, into galas where someone always seemed to find his way close enough to refill her glass before she'd noticed it was empty. Men who decided that a brilliant, emotionless woman would make easy prey once her guard came down. That underneath all that precision and cold control, she must be soft. Waiting to be unlocked by the right opportunity.
They were wrong about that. Profoundly, catastrophically wrong.
