Bride of the Throne

She came into this marriage with a plan to destroy it. Marco Marchetti complicated that before the ink dried.

Pia Fontana has read the contract. She understands the arrangement. A strategic marriage to the Marchetti heir will secure an alliance worth more than either family's territory alone. She has three years to make it work on paper and exit cleanly. She has contingencies. She has a timeline.

What she doesn't have is a read on Marco himself, and that is the first thing that goes wrong.

He is not who she expected. He is watching her the way men in her family watch things they intend to keep—and unlike every other man who has ever wanted something from her, he seems entirely aware that she has her own agenda.

He just doesn't seem to care.

Then the accidents start. A near-fall at a public event, deniable as bad footing. A brake line, tampered and deniable as mechanical failure. Small enough to explain away, precise enough to know better. Someone is staging them—not to stop the wedding, but to frame Marco for her death and ignite a war between two families that would leave both of them in ruins.

The security rotation that should have prevented it exists only inside AEGIS's internal systems. Only someone inside the firm could have known.

Marco refuses to let anyone else guard her. Which means the man she married to neutralize is the one she can't put distance between herself and—and proximity to Marco Marchetti is turning out to be a problem she didn't build a contingency for.

The exit plan she's been holding onto for three years assumes she'll still want to use it. She is no longer certain she does.

Braut des Throns is the third book in the SCHATTEN & STAHL series—a standalone dark arranged marriage romance with a guaranteed HEA. The conspiracy threading through the series takes its most dangerous turn yet. Someone inside AEGIS is willing to start a war. The question is why.

Tropes: Arranged marriage • Forced proximity • Jealous/possessive hero • Fake marriage becomes real • Bodyguard romance • Enemies to lovers • Territorial MMC

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