{"product_id":"king-of-restraint","title":"King of Restraint","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShe slept with him at her sister's wedding. She did not know his last name. Eighteen months later, he walks into Crossley Holdings as her new boss.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom the umbrella pen name behind a 10-book romance launch, Sloane Ashford. Spice: 4 chilies. CWs at the front. Always HEA.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy name is Lila Bennett. I am twenty-eight years old. I am the VP of Operations at Crossley Holdings, a $14-billion private holding company with sub-units on four continents, and I have, since I was twenty-four, been the person who \u003cem\u003eactually runs it\u003c\/em\u003e. My uncle of a CEO let me. He played golf in Sag Harbor. I built the spreadsheets, fired the wrong hire, hired the right one, and was very quietly preparing to be promoted to COO the week he had the heart attack on the eighteenth green.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat I did not budget for, on the Monday after the funeral, was the new CEO.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdrian Crossley is thirty-six. He ran the Crossley Geneva office for eight years and turned it into the highest-margin sub-unit on the balance sheet. He is the brother-of-the-groom at a destination wedding eighteen months ago that I attended as maid-of-honor for my older sister Tessa. He went, that weekend, by \u003cem\u003eAdrian Hale\u003c\/em\u003e, his late mother's name, because the Crossleys are tabloid bait and he was on a deliberate sabbatical from his last name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI did not know who he was. He did not know who I was. We spent one perfectly sober, perfectly chosen night together in the hotel bar's upstairs suite, and in the morning I left him a note that said \u003cem\u003ethank you, I needed that\u003c\/em\u003e and slipped out before room service.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEighteen months later he walks into the Crossley Tower boardroom on a Monday, looks me dead in the eye across nine seated executives, and says, \u003cem\u003eMs. Bennett. I've read your operational brief. Walk me through Q3.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI do. He listens. He does not, all day, all week, all month, mention the bar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAdrian Crossley has, in his desk's middle drawer, a manila folder labeled L.B., Personnel. He has read it twice this week. He hired a small London firm to find out her name eighteen months ago; the firm found it on Tuesday of week one; he fired the firm on Wednesday. He has, in the four weeks since he sat down at the desk that used to be his uncle's, learned three things: this company is run by a woman who has not slept eight hours in three years; the woman is the maid-of-honor from his brother's groom's wedding; and there is going to be one very specific conversation, on a date he has not yet chosen, in which he is going to find out whether the note she left him said exactly what he has been telling himself it said.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLila is \u003cem\u003efurious\u003c\/em\u003e. She is not, under any circumstances, going to be the woman who slept her way into the boardroom, even if the man at the head of the table is the only one who has ever asked, in a voice the entire C-suite has now heard him use about her, \u003cem\u003eWhat do you actually need, Ms. Bennett?\u003c\/em\u003e and then \u003cem\u003ehandled it\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe board has a quarterly review in twelve weeks. The European subsidiaries are restructuring. Lila's promotion is no longer a foregone conclusion. And Adrian Crossley, who has spent eighteen months telling himself the woman from Provence does not exist, is finding out, in the slow careful way he finds everything out, that she has been sitting two doors down from his office the entire time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKing of Restraint\u003c\/strong\u003e is a billionaire-CEO workplace age-gap romance for readers of T L Swan's \u003cem\u003eThe Stopover\u003c\/em\u003e, Ana Huang's \u003cem\u003eKing of Pride\u003c\/em\u003e, and Lauren Asher's \u003cem\u003eThe Fine Print\u003c\/em\u003e. Book 1 of the Crossley Holdings trilogy. Standalone HEA. Spice: 4 chilies. \u003cem\u003eI am unwell about this CEO. I will gatekeep him.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTropes I'd quit my job for: workplace + age-gap, one-night-stand-to-CEO-office, the boss who reads your operational brief twice before your file.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePick your room. xx Sloane.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sloane Ashford","offers":[{"title":"Volume 1 (King of Restraint)","offer_id":44645343035475,"sku":null,"price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Volume 1 + 2 (King of Restraint + King of Reckoning)","offer_id":44645343068243,"sku":null,"price":54.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Complete Trilogy (Volumes 1, 2 \u0026 3)","offer_id":44645343101011,"sku":null,"price":74.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/4986\/4531\/files\/design1_emotional_hook_b3ee08c8-b1f6-4239-9f74-4551f4726e5a.png?v=1779628419","url":"https:\/\/silkthorn.com\/products\/king-of-restraint","provider":"Silkthorn","version":"1.0","type":"link"}