On the night she wins an Emmy, Ainsley Vaughn makes a choice that will shadow her for years.

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When celebration turns tragic on a dark Los Angeles street, she takes the blame—protecting a star, preserving a studio, and quietly adding one more sacrifice to a life already shaped by them.

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Attorney Rhys Merrick is hired to contain the fallout. Controlled and strategic, he fixes problems and keeps his distance. Ainsley is supposed to be another crisis to manage.

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Instead, he stays.

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As he helps her rebuild her name and launch a fashion line of her own, their partnership becomes something neither expected. Ainsley is done being the good daughter, the convenient solution, the woman who absorbs the damage so others don't have to. She wants Rhys—not simply as her protector, but as the man who sees who she really is.

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But Rhys has built his life on control, and Ainsley has spent hers believing love requires sacrifice.

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When the past she fled calls her back to Savannah, old expectations and unfinished wounds threaten the life they've begun to build. To survive them, Ainsley and Rhys will have to discover whether love can demand everything without requiring either of them to disappear.

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Contains consensual power exchange, dominance/submission, and erotic spanking between adults.

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Formerly published as Stubborn Pride.