Ash Blonde

GraceBertrand 1 story

Story Notes

Summary

Ciara has spent years constructing the perfect version of herself: beautiful, ambitious and destined for a glittering future beyond Ireland. But beneath the polished surface, she is restless—and increasingly resentful of anyone who can see through it. No one sees Ciara more clearly than Claire, her oldest friend. Clever, impulsive and hopelessly in love with her, Claire has tolerated Ciara’s mixed signals for years. When the two women impulsively book a trip through Switzerland and northern Italy, it seems like an opportunity to escape their ordinary lives—and perhaps finally confront what lies between them. Then a storm leaves them stranded in an isolated Alpine village, where a charming stranger offers them shelter. Surrounded by mountains and cut off from the outside world, the boundaries between attraction, rivalry and danger begin to dissolve. What starts as an intoxicating adventure becomes a struggle for control. As desire turns to captivity, Ciara discovers that the persona she has so carefully cultivated may not protect her—and that the darkest threat in the mountains may not be the man who invited them inside.