Cruel Nurture

She signed a contract. He bought her soul.Clara Ellison is drowning. Twenty-four years old, buried under $211,000 in debt she inherited from her dead father, and running out of options. When a wealthy widower offers her a live-in nanny position with a salary that could save her life, she doesn't ask why the contract is forty-one pages long.She should have.Vaughn Ashford doesn't want a nanny. He wants control. His rules are absolute. His schedule is merciless. His penalties are devastating. And the woman he hired — desperate, nurturing, and financially ruined — is exactly the clay he's been looking for.Inside his sterile glass mansion, Clara cares for his silent five-year-old daughter by day and submits to his authority by night. Every deduction from her paycheck pulls the leash tighter. Every rare word of praise rewires her brain. Every rule she follows erases another piece of who she used to be.But Vaughn didn't account for one variable: the woman he's breaking might be the only person his daughter has ever loved. And destroying Clara means destroying the one thing he can't rebuild.When a violent threat breaches the walls of his fortress, Clara must decide what she's willing to fight for — and whether the man who owns her debt, her wardrobe, and her sleep schedule has also earned something he never paid for.Her heart.