They called her collateral damage.


He made her his favorite weapon.

Lauren McQueen had a plan. A life. A love story.

Until her boyfriend of three years shattered it with a smile and a promotion—dumping her days before Christmas and branding her a “liability.”

Worse? He’s now engaged to her coworker.

Rosette Goldberg. The office queen. The venom in Valentino.

Humiliation tastes worse with champagne.

So Lauren does what any woman with pride and a pulse would do—she lies. And in walks Alexandro “Lex” Castello.

Trillionaire. Sin in a tailored suit. The kind of man who doesn’t just walk into your story—he rewrites it.

He agrees to play her boyfriend for one night.

Except with Lex, nothing is ever just one night.

The lie spirals. The spark ignites. And soon, Lauren is drowning in a world of secrets, power, and seduction she never asked to enter—but can’t find her way out of.

Because Lex Castello doesn’t pretend. He possesses.
And what started as revenge may end in obsession.

He’s not her date.
He’s her reckoning.


And she’s about to find out that the worst thing wasn’t losing her boyfriend…it’s trusting the wrong devil.