Guarding the Lie

I didn't mean to lie in front of three hundred people. I definitely didn't mean to grab the most dangerous man in the room and call him my fiance.
Elena Marsh has spent her whole life being managed — by her stepfather, by his business, by the marriage he's quietly negotiating on her behalf like she's a line item in a merger. When he corners her at a black-tie gala and introduces her to the man she's expected to marry, panic makes the decision for her. She grabs the nearest stranger, kisses him in front of everyone, and announces she's already taken.
The stranger is Gideon Ashford — a self-made property mogul with a reputation for ruthlessness and a past he's spent five years trying to outrun. He should walk away. Instead, he sees an opportunity: if the world believes he's spoken for, the family who destroyed his name once already can't use marriage as leverage against him a second time.
What starts as two strangers protecting their own interests spirals fast. A fake engagement becomes a fake pregnancy when her stepfather threatens to expose the arrangement unless they prove it's real. Now Elena and Gideon are sharing a penthouse, a story, and a bed — and the lines between performance and possession are disappearing by the day.
He was never supposed to want her for real. She was never supposed to crave the way he says mine like a threat and a promise at once. But secrets don't stay buried forever, and when the truth comes out, it could cost them both everything they built to protect.
Guarding the Lie is a high-heat, emotionally intense standalone romance with a possessive alpha hero, a heroine done being controlled, and a lie neither of them can survive falling out of.
Tropes: Fake Relationship, Secret Pregnancy, Possessive Alpha, Forced Proximity, Hidden Past, Guaranteed HEA