She needed the money. He needed something to break.

Harlow Vance is twenty-two, drowning in her mother's medical debt, and desperate enough to take an apprenticeship at Iron & Oak Salvage ? a sprawling, dangerous reclamation yard on the industrial outskirts of Detroit.

Torin Cross is the owner. Thirty-five. Massive. Merciless. He tears apart dying buildings for a living and saves the beautiful pieces. He takes one look at Harlow and sees exactly what she is: desperate, unbroken, and too stubborn to quit.

He doesn't want an apprentice. He wants clay.

The work is grueling. The heat is brutal. The blisters come first, then the exhaustion, then the moment she's too tired to fight the way his voice drops when he calls her good girl.

He pushes her past her limits. When she breaks, he catches her. When she rebuilds, he takes the credit. And when she tries to leave, he makes sure she can't.

But Harlow Vance is not a beam he can strip down and reshape. She is not a broken thing waiting to be reclaimed. And the man who built her into something stronger than he intended is about to discover that the most dangerous structure in his yard is the one that learns to stand without him.

This book contains mature themes including psychological manipulation and explicit content intended for adult readers.