Prologue
If you had asked Sienna Savannah Santiago what her dreams were, she would have answered in two seconds flat: finish college, win every rodeo competition, and make her Lola proud.
Love? It wasn’t even a thought. She had no time for it, no space for it. A promise was a promise, after all.
And yet, life had a twisted sense of humor.
The first time she locked eyes with Levi Imperial Perez, he wasn’t the intimidating CEO his name carried in the business world. No, he was just another face in the crowd at the rodeo grounds, clapping louder than anyone when she cleared the final barrel like lightning. Another admirer, she thought. Another fleeting stranger. She never expected him to stay.
She didn’t know that Levi would give up boardrooms and corner offices just to walk the same halls she did, trading custom suits for the plain uniform of a university instructor. She didn’t know that he would choose to teach at the department where she belonged, just for the chance to see her every day, even if it meant being invisible in her world. She didn’t know that sometimes, the biggest risks weren’t taken on the back of a bucking horse... but in the quiet, stubborn battle between a guarded heart and an unspoken love.
Sienna thought she could steer her life like she steered her horse, fast, fearless, and straight toward her dreams. But she never planned for Levi Perez. And no amount of reins could control the fall she was about to take
