Elara

I woke up in a hotel bed beside a stranger after a drunken night—only to find out he’s my new 19-year-old freshman student, and my best friend’s little brother.
As a strict 28-year-old psychology professor, I’ve always lived a disciplined, perfectly controlled life. Until a wild bachelorette party shattered all my boundaries. I drank too much and blacked out, waking up disoriented in a messy hotel room, with a young stranger lying beside me. Crippled by overwhelming shame and panic, I left cash on the nightstand and fled silently, desperate to bury that hazy, embarrassing night forever.
I’ve been avoiding him relentlessly ever since, clinging to every strict boundary to protect my career and reputation. But he refuses to let me hide. Bold and unapologetic, he endlessly teases and provokes me in class. He weaponizes my own attachment theories to strip away my calm professor mask, toying with our hidden secret and closing the distance I fight so hard to maintain.

I’m Aria Rossi, a perfumer reborn from a brutal, agonizing death. Four years early, Vito Castellano drugged and overpowered me; my body shook in raw bliss when a bullet tore through my temple. All I craved after waking was anonymity—blend scents in secret, hoard cash, and flee to Switzerland to evade his blood-soaked world. Fate betrayed me when I crashed into him at the Velvet Room, his mind unraveled by cocaine and unhinged killing rage. Only my rare jasmine and bergamot fragrance can quiet his feral, drug-fueled mania. Now he won’t let me slip from his orbit. He locks me inside his guarded penthouse after every perfume lesson, his greedy, bruising hands clinging to my skin each night. He drags me to dim underground cellars to watch traitors suffer brutal mob punishment, a silent warning to bend to his will. The ghost of cold metal pressed to my forehead haunts every quiet moment. I’ve stashed a seven-figure escape fund hidden away, yet his far-reaching mafia power cuts off every escape route. Trapped between his intoxicating pull and the deadly memory of my murder, can I find a way to break free before he shoots me dead a second time?