The Protector’s Forty-Nine-Year-Old Lady

She wakes up weeks before her granddaughter’s wedding. Desperate to rewrite a tragedy, she storms into the abbey at night—only to be pinned against the wall by the fever-mad Regent. After that single, ruinous night, she flees back to her quiet life, hoping the secret will die. But the Regent tracks her down. Cornering her at the edge of her bed, the twenty-five-year-old Lord Protector brushes a strand of silver hair from her cheek and says, voice low and rough: “I owe you my life.” He pauses, his dark eyes blazing. “…And I owe you a name.”