“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, Zinnia...” her father said, before a group of men grabbed her, submitting her.

“Dad... What did you do?!” Zinnia was fuming, watching her sister go into self-destruction due to the overwhelming stress.

“I’ll pay everything I owe, please, just help me out, this one time. I’ll pay it all...” Zinnia’s heart sank at his words.

Zinnia Gomez’s life is simple—school, her mother’s flower shop, and caring for her disabled sister, Poppy. With her father long gone and college dreams tied to a scholarship, romance has always been something she only read about.

But when mysterious transfer student Xander Holland walks into her life, her dull routine starts to bloom with color. For the first time, Zinnia allows herself to hope—for love, for a little freedom, for something just for her.

That fragile happiness shatters when her estranged father returns, desperate and in debt. In one night, Zinnia is torn from her home and sold to pay what he owes.

Now captive in the hands of Christopher Vecera—the ruthless heir to Down City’s governor—Zinnia is thrust into a dark world she never imagined… and there she finds Xander again, not as her savior.

Now, every heartbeat is a bargain, and every whispered promise might be the price of her soul.