Prologue
Marcus Aurelius Saavedra was once the kind of man who believed in permanence. He gave himself entirely, recklessly, to one woman—heart, body, soul—never imagining she would leave, much less end up in his brother Gaius’s arms. The betrayal gutted him in a way nothing else ever had, and in the years that followed, he built walls no one could climb, not even himself.
And then Cruella Cervantes walked in, all sharp edges and unapologetic fire, and looked at him like she wasn’t afraid of the wreckage.
She didn’t want to fix him. She didn’t want anything until he offered her the one thing he thought he could still control: his body.
No love. No complications. No expectations.
Just a way to forget








