Hollow Promises. Thorned Empire, #1

She spent seven years loving him in secret. He spent seven years waiting for the right moment to claim her. Maeve Sterling has finally moved on. After years of silently aching for her best friend's cold, untouchable older brother, she's done. She has a new boyfriend. A kind, normal man who texts back and shows up and doesn't make her hands shake when he walks into a room. Silas Thorne should be relieved.
Instead, something snaps. Silas doesn't chase. He doesn't beg. He doesn't do anything as crude as confess his feelings. What he does is far worse - and far more calculated. He dismantles her boyfriend's career from the shadows. Engineers every failure, every fight, every fracture in her relationship. And when the man she chose finally breaks under the pressure and disappears, Silas is right there.
Steady. Warm. Ready to catch the woman he shattered - and convince her she fell on her own. But Maeve isn't stupid. She's just in love with the wrong man. And the closer Silas pulls her into his world of old money, dark obsession, and suffocating devotion, the more she begins to wonder: Did she choose him - or was she never given a choice at all?Hollow Promises is a full-length dark psychological romance told in dual perspective.
It features a possessive, jealous hero who fell first - and fell darkest - a best friend's brother dynamic laced with calculated sabotage, and a heroine trapped in forced proximity with a man she knows is dangerous and chooses anyway. The ending will leave you staring at the wall. Thorned Empire, Book 1. This book contains mature content including explicit scenes, psychological manipulation, gaslighting, stalking behavior, and morally complex themes.
Reader discretion is advised.