THE VELVET CAGE

He offered to save her brother. The price was ninety days of her life.Vivienne St. Clair is desperate.Her younger brother owes fifty thousand dollars to one of New Orleans' most dangerous criminal syndicates, and time is running out. With no money, no protection, and nowhere left to turn, Vivienne does the unthinkable—she breaks into the private gallery of Julian Delacroix.She expects to find leverage.Instead, she finds him.Powerful, ruthless, impossibly controlled, Julian is a man surrounded by secrets, wealth, and whispered rumors. He can erase Leo's debt. He can make Vivienne's enemies disappear.But Julian doesn't want her money.He wants her.For ninety days, Vivienne will live under his roof, obey his rules, and enter a world of dangerous desire, forbidden rooms, hidden auctions, and secrets buried beneath priceless works of art.What begins as a bargain quickly becomes something far more dangerous.Because Julian has been watching Vivienne longer than she realizes.And when her rare gift for uncovering the secrets hidden inside old paintings reveals evidence that could destroy a criminal empire, Vivienne is pulled into a deadly game of obsession, revenge, and desire.Now the man she should fear most may be the only man capable of protecting her.And the cage she entered to save her brother may become the one place she no longer wants to escape.THE VELVET CAGE is a dark, sensual romance filled with obsession, power, danger, morally gray characters, forbidden desire, and a heroine who refuses to break.For adult readers 18+. Contains explicit sexual content, coercive power dynamics, captivity, violence, threats, trafficking-related themes, and dubious consent.