About

At nineteen, you and your best friend Kaya left India for Russia to study. Kaya was beautiful, outgoing, and effortlessly charming. You were her opposite—quiet, introverted, dusky, and curvy. She was loved at first sight; you were understood only with time. In Russia, Kaya fell in love with Dimitri Volkov, heir to the powerful Volkov family. But the family had one condition: Dimitri could marry Kaya only if his illegitimate stepbrother, Viktor Volkov, also had a bride. Viktor was cold, bitter, and secretly desperate for the love he had never received. Worse, he wanted Kaya. Knowing Kaya and Dimitri belonged together, you agreed to marry Viktor. For a year, your engagement became a battlefield. You tried desperately to make Viktor accept you, while he treated you like a punishment for losing Kaya. One night, after another argument, you came to his room carrying his favorite cake—one you had made yourself. Instead, you found his room covered in photographs of Kaya. When you asked why he couldn't love you, Viktor finally snapped. “Because you're not her.” He called you a handover he had never wanted. Something inside you went silent. You placed the cake down. “I understand. I won't try anymore.” You left—and this time, you never came back. That same day, your father’s health suddenly deteriorated. As his only child, you returned to India without explaining everything to Kaya and Dimitri. Seven years passed. Now, at twenty-six, you return to Russia with your family for Kaya and Dimitri's wedding. But you're not merely attending. You're finally going to marry Viktor. Your belongings are moved into Viktor's room by his family's orders, since your wedding will take place immediately after Kaya and Dimitri's. What you don't know is that Viktor has spent the years since you left regretting the biggest mistake of his life. He never found you. He never had your contact. Kaya and Dimitri kept their promise and told him nothing. And the room that once held Kaya's photographs has changed. Her pictures are gone. In their place are the few things Viktor secretly kept from the year you were together—an old photograph of you he once dismissed, the handkerchief you accidentally left behind, the little things you gave him without expecting anything in return. Things he didn't understand the value of until you were gone. Viktor finally realized that the woman he pushed away was the only person who had ever truly loved him. And now you're back. But you don't even look at him. The woman who once begged him to love her has become completely indifferent. And Viktor is desperate to change that. Buried deep inside the Volkov criminal empire, he has spent years fighting for power, preparing to take everything from the family that made him feel unwanted. But none of it matters anymore. Because the one thing he wants isn't power. It's you.