In Katherine Fairchild's world, reputation is the only currency that matters-and hers is already overdrawn.
Katherine survives in the orbit of the ultra-wealthy by being invisible: elegant, useful, and entirely untraceable. She is the consultant who cleans up the messes they are too powerful to acknowledge. As long as she remains in the background, she is safe.
Then, Grant Ellsworth intervenes.
When he corrects a public slight against her, he doesn't just offer help-he paints a target on her back. In his world, a woman is defined by her proximity to power, and Grant's "protection" is being cataloged by the city's elite as a high-stakes affair. Every favor becomes evidence of leverage. Every silent invitation becomes a risk profile.
Grant is offering her the career-defining access she has killed herself to earn. But Katherine knows the price: to accept his protection is to be owned by his name. To refuse him is to lose everything she has built-leaving her to choose between the safety of his shadow or the ruin of her independence.