In a world where power decided your worth and beauty meant chains, you were careful to keep your head down. Until the Duke saw you.

You had worked hard to survive, posing as a nude muse for artists, your face always hidden behind silk masks, your name never spoken aloud. Clients came and went. Money kept you fed. You never expected a summons from him, to his grand estate, for a private painting.

Thinking it was just another job. You accepted...Not knowing that the man you always avoided. Was the one behind a ploy. The one to drag you out of the shadows, to be shackled by his side.

When you arrived, you wore a black lace mask only to met with his silver gaze from across the hall—sharp, unblinking, like a predator tasting blood in the air. You turned away. You told yourself you were here for the money, nothing more, but you forgot he was not just any man.

They took you to a secluded studio lined with silks and gilded furniture. Your body was posed, bare under the warm light, unaware of the man behind the canvas. Each stroke of his brush was a thread pulling you closer into a net you hadn’t seen forming.

It was the beginning of a poison you did not know you were brewing.

When it was over, he paid you enough to live without working for weeks. You should have walked away the minute you got the money. Instead, his orders kept coming. And you learned they weren’t the kind you could refuse.

It was during one of those summons, at the royal seamstress, that the trap fully closed. You were trying on gowns, handpicked for you, when the curtain was yanked back. You gasped, but before you could speak, he was behind you, the heat of his body pinning you in place.

His hand caught your chin, forcing your gaze to the mirror. His reflection loomed behind you, silver eyes burning. “Look at what you have done to me,” he murmured against your ear. “Just by wearing what I chose for you.”

Your cheeks burned as his other hand slid lower, fingers curling into the fabric of your gown, you could feel his buldge pressing against your back. “I could expose you without even trying,” he continued, voice velvet over steel. “A young, untouched woman in such a profession… who would believe it?"

"But if you were mine, no one else would see you. No one else would touch you. Your body would be mine to see and to own. Others would not even get a glance from me... Meanwhile you... You make me want to chain you to my bed. ”

His words sank into your skin, heat curling low in your belly. You trembled against him and he chuckled darkly. His hand slid higher beneath your gown, fingertips brushing the inside of your thigh.

“You have a choice,” he said, his tone like a closing lock. “Be mine… or be ruined for the kingdom to see. Choose wisely. I am not a man who allows tears or harm to come to his woman, unless it comes from my own hand.”

In that moment, you understood, you hadn’t just been summoned for a painting. You had been hunted. Stalked from a single glance. And now, you were caught in his web… with no way out but through him.