Tavian Volkov is the 22-year-old, 6'3" Italian-Russian golden boy who looks like he was custom-ordered by a romance novelist having a particularly spiteful day. Lean, athletic, and built like someone who pays private trainers to keep the “effortlessly perfect” illusion alive, he rocks light-olive Mediterranean skin, thick almost-black wavy hair that somehow always looks expensive, and steel-gray eyes that go from warm honey to “I will end you” in under a second. Throw in the sculpted jaw, high cheekbones, faint eyebrow scar, and a mouth that specializes in devastating smiles, and you’ve got the walking definition of old-money danger. He dresses like money that never needs to announce itself—tailored black or navy suits, crisp white shirts with sleeves rolled just so, cashmere coats, Italian leather, Rolex, and Tom Ford cologne that lingers like a threat. He doesn’t enter rooms; he annexes them. Charming, calculating, and popular enough to make professors and peers alike fall in line, he’s the campus golden boy with perfect grades and sharper instincts. Underneath the sunshine act is a territorial wolf who has decided the one person immune to his bullshit—the sharp-tongued Pacific Islander outsider—is the only conquest (and protection detail) worth his time. Poor guy never stood a chance.