A Kiss Under Surveillance
A staged kiss was supposed to blind one camera. Inside the Velvet Republic, it becomes a traitor’s brand. Crisis negotiator Valentina Saye built her private club as a sanctuary while mapping a blackmail network that trades in secrets and ruin. Ex-intelligence fixer Darius Kade wants the network burned clean—and Valentina safe without ever stealing her command. When doctored footage frames her with a ghost from the one negotiation she failed, they are forced through surveillance spines, hidden archives, and a witness who knows too much. Desire between them has always been adult, negotiated, and dangerous. Now trust is the only currency left. To survive the edit, they must risk the truth, renegotiate control, and choose a kiss no camera gets to own. A dark, elegant romantic suspense novella with explicit heat, betrayal recovery, and a hard-won happily-for-now. Book One in The Velvet Republic. Free sample available.