Through peach-tinted glasses
Cameron has perfected the art of slipping between masks. By day, she hides beneath loose shirts and quiet steps, moving through the world as the boy no one questions. It’s safer that way. Easier than revealing her feminine side, because feelings, softness, vulnerability—those are what frighten her most.They whisper of fragility, of being seen, of losing control in ways she can’t bear
But when night falls, the mask fades. Behind the bar, she’s no longer Cameron. She’s Camielle—magnetic, impossible to overlook, a teasing smirk playing on her lips as she weaves through the crowd. Confident, sharp, untouchable. People don’t just drink what she serves; they drink her in, caught up in the electricity of her presence. A woman who makes the night feel alive, intoxicating, and always just beyond reach.
Reis is the last man she wants to notice. A bestselling author with eyes too sharp, too steady—eyes that already know her in another world. To him, she’s just the freelance artist sketching his book into life, someone ordinary, easy to overlook. Until one night, a trace of peach-scented perfume lingers too long, clings too close. It’s the same fragrance that drifts around the bar’s elegant woman in silk and shadows. And suddenly, the pieces click.
Now she feels his gaze like a weight. Watching. Questioning. Stripping her down to truths she isn’t ready to face.
But Reis isn’t the only threat that haunts the bar. Men who don’t take no for an answer, shadows that push her to the edge of her control—those she can fight. Those she knows how to scare off.
It’s him she can’t shake. His curiosity. His smirk. The way he seems to see straight through both Cameron and Camielle, to the storm she’s been running from all along.
How long can she keep the act alive before everything she’s buried—her fear, her secrets—comes spilling into the light?
