The Price of Your Contempt

She was sold. Not to the highest bidder — to the cruelest one.

Selene Arismendi had one rule when she signed the contract that made her Maximiliano Valente's wife: survive. Not thrive. Not be loved. Just survive the cold mansion, the locked doors, the meals that vanished as punishment, and the man who called her *merchandise* like it was a term of endearment.

She survived. And then, on their second anniversary, while Maximiliano was busy forgetting she existed, she walked out.

The coastal village was supposed to be a hiding place. It wasn't supposed to have a man like Gabriel Mendoza — quiet, unhurried, the kind of man who comes into a bookshop looking for García Márquez and ends up staying for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe all the right ones.

Selene knows better than to trust a man who looks at her like she's worth something. She built her walls from experience. She keeps her past locked behind three dead bolts and a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

Gabriel is patient. Gabriel is kind. Gabriel is also not who he says he is.

When the truth comes out — about Gabriel's name, his power, and exactly why he came to that village — Selene has to decide what kind of woman she's become: the one who survived, or the one who's finally willing to live.

But Maximiliano hasn't let go. Men who believe they own things don't release them — they hunt them. And he's coming for what he still considers his.

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