Maya has spent her life being overlooked, spoken over, and quietly erased.

Her father is always away on “business.” His new wife controls the house with polished smiles and silent cruelty. Her stepsister treats her absence as a given. So when her father announces her arranged marriage to secure the family’s future, Maya does not even get the courtesy of a choice. She is twenty-two and already being handed over.

The only thing that feels like her own is the man she watches from a distance every evening at her favourite café. Tall. Brooding. Always there. Always leaving before she gathers the courage to look twice. He feels like a fantasy she was never meant to touch.

What Maya does not know is that Arnav has never been a coincidence.

As the fiercely protective uncle of her college best friend Charu, he had a reason to notice her. Then a reason to watch her. Then no reason at all except that he wanted to. He knows her schedule, her habits, the way she hides her sketchbook when she feels exposed. He knows which table she chooses, which road she takes home, how her smile fades when she thinks no one is looking.

He calls it protection. He calls it control. He tells himself she is safer when he is watching.

But obsession does not ask permission.

Arnav does not just observe Maya. He inserts himself into her life slowly, deliberately, until she cannot tell where coincidence ends and his presence begins. In his mind, she already belongs to him. The arranged marriage is a threat. And threats are meant to be removed.

When Maya discovers that the man she has been quietly yearning for has been tracking her every move, will desire pull her closer or will fear finally make her run? And if she runs, will he let her go?

Come for the darkness. Stay for the obsession. A possessive hero who does not believe in restraint, a soft heroine caught in his gaze, intense daddy vibes, and a love story that does not ask if it should cross the line. It already has.