Chapter 1
Elena Carter didn’t believe in fate.
Fate didn’t care how many nights you spent perfecting design mockups on two hours of sleep. Fate didn’t care if you graduated at the top of your class, if you burned yourself raw to rise above mediocre expectations, if you clawed your way out of a crumbling hometown with nothing but drive and desperation in your pocket.
No. Fate had nothing to do with this.
She’d earned every goddamn step that led her into the glinting marble lobby of Sterling Properties—a towering shrine of glass and steel that cut into the Manhattan sky like a blade.
The receptionist, a blonde with flawless posture and a headset wrapped sleekly around one ear, didn’t bother smiling as she spoke. “Take the private elevator to the forty-second floor. He’s expecting you.”
“He,” of course, was Dominic Sterling. The youngest real estate billionaire in the country. A man rumored to close billion-dollar deals while sipping espresso. A man who hadn’t hired an architect outside of his elite in-house design team in nearly six years.
And yet he’d asked for her.
Elena smoothed her blazer over her hips, lifted her chin, and walked.
The elevator doors hissed open into a world that was too quiet. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the walls like a glass cage, and in the middle stood a man with his back to her—broad shoulders, dark tailored suit, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of something amber and dangerous.
He didn’t turn right away.
The air between them grew still, heavy, like it was waiting for someone to make the first move.
“Elena Carter,” she said, refusing to sound nervous. “You requested me.”
He finally turned. And her breath caught.
Dominic Sterling wasn’t beautiful in the way magazines liked to portray him. He was arresting. Hard angles, sharp jawline, eyes like silver smoke under thick brows. There was something wolfish in the way he studied her—calculating, precise, indifferent.
“I read your file,” he said. His voice was low, smooth, with a hint of rasp. “They say you’re a visionary.”
“They?”
“My board. My assistant. A very persistent client who won’t shut up about you.”
Her brow lifted. “And what do you say?”
“I say vision means nothing if you can’t handle fire.”
He stepped closer. Slowly. Like a man who didn’t need to rush because he knew he already owned the room.
“I’ve reviewed your concepts,” he continued. “Your last project in Barcelona was bold. Risky.”
“It won an international award.”
“It nearly bankrupted the firm funding it.”
A challenge. Her pulse jumped—but she smiled.
“It didn’t,” she said softly. “Because I don’t break things. I build them.”
His gaze dropped, briefly, to her mouth. Just long enough to stir something hot and reckless low in her stomach.
“We’ll see,” he said.
For the next forty minutes, she presented her design for his newest coastal estate in Rhode Island—a structure that would rise from cliffs like it had grown from the stone itself. Glass walls that captured ocean light. Open air hallways. A rooftop infinity pool that looked like it spilled into the sea.
When she finished, silence stretched like a held breath.
Then Dominic Sterling stood.
And walked around the table.
Elena didn’t move. But every inch of her skin buzzed.
He leaned one hand on the sleek glass surface between them. His face was close now, close enough for her to smell the faintest trace of scotch and expensive cologne—leather, wood smoke, something dark.
“You’ve got an eye,” he said.
“And you’ve got a reputation,” she replied.
“For?”
“Breaking things.”
A flicker of something crossed his face—something wild and unreadable.
He smiled.
But it wasn’t warm. It was the kind of smile that suggested warning more than charm.
“I don’t break what I want to keep.”
Outside the Sterling tower, the wind whipped her hair as she stepped into the cab. Her hands were still trembling. Whether it was adrenaline or attraction, she wasn’t sure.
What she did know?
Dominic Sterling was going to be a problem.
And problems like him?
Were always the hardest to walk away from.
