Seeking solitude and reprieve from her past failed relationships, Elsa begins her life anew in Richmond, hoping to find the change that she so desperately needs. Things are looking up for her - a new job, new friends, a fresh start. But Victor has different plans for her. From the moment he heard Elsa's voice, she became next on his to-do list. A well-known and respected criminal profiler, his mind is as dark as the criminals he hunts down. It takes one to know one, after all. Under the guise of making his subjects stronger, he intends to break Elsa down using everything in his arsenal - including pleasure, pain, humiliation, and things unspeakable.

Lonely, still on the mend from a bad break-up and longing for attention, Elsa consents to an odd proposition. Initially unaware of Victor's plans, she quickly realizes that the casual encounter she agreed to is, in fact, a cruel psychological game with no ending in sight. She may be one in a long line of test subjects for Victor; however, she can't be broken so easily. What he puts her through only fuels the fire burning within her - a flame that begins to blaze out of control as she becomes obsessed with everything about Victor and peeling back his cruel layers in search of the real man hiding beneath his heartless facade. In Victor's world, there is no such thing as happily ever after, and Elsa proves to be an infuriating challenger when she flips the tables on his selfish and twisted game, a game they both may end up losing their hearts and minds over.

Warning: this is neither a conventional romance nor a traditional love story. There are no hearts and flowers in this book. The heroine doesn't always make wise choices and though I've tried to make her strong, she's often times weak in the face of the fierce hero. The hero is not a knight in shining armor. He's broken and frequently cruel.