The Salt Harbor Vow

In the fog-bound port city of Vessel Point, marine insurance investigator Noor Castellane, 29, discovers her late father's shipping ledgers hide a debt owed to the Ardent Syndicate, a smuggling empire that controls the docks. To erase it, syndicate heir Rafe Ardent, 34, demands a contract marriage: one year as his wife, publicly shielding him from a rival family's claim that he is unfit to inherit. Noor agrees, but only because she secretly plans to use her new access to gather evidence and bring the entire Syndicate down. Inside the cliffside Ardent estate, every dinner is an interrogation and every ally may be an informant. Rafe's ruthless stepmother, Vivienne, wants Noor gone, and a federal agent pressures Noor to wear a wire. Then Noor uncovers a truth that shatters her mission: her father wasn't a victim of the Syndicate's debt. He was the one who built its smuggling routes, and Rafe has been quietly dismantling them from within. Now Noor must choose between the evidence that could free her and the man who may be the only one trying to end the empire she swore to destroy. The hook: the wire she wears could save her or bury the only honest Ardent alive.