The Gilded Gears of Grief

Ivana Markovic is a gear-wrencher, not a debutante. But when her brilliant, favored sister flees an arranged partnership on the eve of Kovar's prestigious Innovator's Gauntlet, Ivana is shoved into her place. Her new partner is Stellan Varoche, the 'Beast of Ashenholt' - a reclusive, scarred genius infamous for the Cinderfall disaster that ruined her family and countless others. Trapped in his soot-stained manor, Ivana is handed a list of baffling rules: 'Never touch the schematics on the west wall.' 'Don't speak of the Cinderfall.' 'Report all tremors from the workshop immediately.' Convinced he's a paranoid tyrant, she clashes with him at every turn, determined to win the Gauntlet for her family and expose him as a fraud. But as they work, she glimpses the profound grief and crushing guilt hidden beneath his gruff exterior. The tremors aren't from faulty machinery, but from his own hands. The forbidden schematics aren't secret projects, but memorials. The 'Beast' isn't a monster; he's a prisoner of his past. Can Ivana decipher the truth behind his rules before their rivalry shatters what's left of his broken heart?