Gilded Pulse - V.M. LaFountain

The empire is built on a lie. The foundation is starting to crack.

Aidan Langford is a man of precision. As the Harvard-educated heir to the Langford architectural dynasty, he lives by the laws of structural integrity. When a high-stakes merger threatens his family's legacy, Aidan makes the most calculated move of his life: he proposes to Alisha Woods, the glittering, ambitious face of his rival firm. He needs a lioness to help him rule; Alisha, a "viper in silk," is more than happy to take the throne.

But while Alisha chases the optics of power, it is her "illegitimate" sister, Alice, who keeps the buildings from falling down.

Quiet, brilliant, and systematically erased by her own family, Alice Woods is the true genius behind the firm's most iconic designs. She lives in the shadows, correcting Alisha's lethal architectural blunders in secret-until Aidan Langford starts to look past the polish and see the soul beneath the blueprints.

As the merger nears completion, Aidan finds himself pulled between the woman he chose for his image and the woman he can't stop protecting. But in a world where betrayal is the ultimate currency, a "perfect" marriage might just be a death sentence. Aidan is about to learn that the most dangerous cracks aren't in the marble-they're in the people he trusts the most.

In the high-octane world of elite architecture, the most beautiful facades hide the darkest rot. And when the pulse of the city shifts, only the strongest foundations will survive.