When I was 20, I married my dad's older brother.

I was twenty when I married Asher Blackwood, a man who was almost like a brother to my father, despite their age difference.

He was eight years my senior, a notorious, ice-cold magnate in our circles. Ruthless in business, famously aloof with women, yet with me, he was impossibly gentle.

He'd give orders to deliver multi-million-dollar jewels to me the very next day, just because I'd casually mentioned, "That necklace is pretty."

He'd drop multi-million-dollar deals to personally brew me ginger tea when my period cramps had me curled up in bed, patiently spoon-feeding it to me until it was…