My father's dying wish put me in Colt Tso's hands.

Not romantically. Legally. Financially. Completely.

He controls my trust fund until I turn twenty-five. He controls the family company my father built. He controls whether I keep the house I grew up in or lose it to creditors circling like they've been waiting for the funeral to end. What Colt doesn't get to control is the way I feel every time he walks into a room like he owns it — like he owns me.

He's thirty-eight. Ruthless in boardrooms, unreadable everywhere else. My father's oldest friend, his most trusted partner, the man who promised at the funeral he'd take care of me. I don't think either of us knew what that promise would turn into.

I tell myself the tension between us is just proximity. Grief. The fact that I have nowhere else to go in this town where everyone still whispers about my father's company and what's left of it. Colt tells himself he's just doing his job. Neither of us believes it anymore.

He's careful never to touch me. I've started wondering what would happen if he stopped being careful.

But this isn't just forbidden — it's a conflict of interest with my entire inheritance riding on it, a small town that will not let either of us breathe if this gets out, and a will with clauses neither of us has read closely enough. If we're wrong about each other, I lose everything. If we're right, I still might.

The Trustee is a standalone forbidden age-gap romance featuring a guardian/ward-adjacent power dynamic, a possessive love interest, small-town scrutiny, slow-burn tension, dual POV, and a guaranteed HEA with no cheating and no cliffhanger. Emotionally intense, high tension, fade-to-black intimacy. 18+.

Tropes: Forbidden Romance, Age-Gap, Guardian Dynamic, Small-Town Setting, Slow Burn, Possessive Hero