HE OWNS EVERY BREATH I TAKE. I arrived at Woburn Manor as a simple seamstress with nothing but my needle and my pride. Dontrell Washington, the Baron of Woburn, stripped both away the moment our eyes met. He is a man of royal blood and a terrifying, iron will. To him, my village ways are an affront. He decided to mold me into something refined. Something broken. Something his. Now, my world is defined by the agonizing pull of silk laces and the bite of whalebone. Every morning, I am cinched into a sixteen-inch waist until I can barely breathe. This is my new life under his stern governance. When I stumble or show a flash of my old spirit, his leather strap provides the correction I secretly crave. The shame is a fire in my blood. I am no longer a woman of the people. I am a bird in a gilded cage, learning to love the bars. The elite of the ton wait for me to fail. They see the commoner beneath the expensive gowns. At the Grand Ball, the pressure reaches a breaking point. My past is a weapon in the hands of my enemies. I stand on the edge of total social ruin while the laces of my corset threaten to steal my very consciousness. The Baron does not cast me aside. He claims me in front of them all with a cold, dominant fury. He has traded his reputation for my total submission. I am bound to his side by his iron law and my own dark obsession.