The most dangerous lies are the ones we want to believe.

At forty-three, Summer Morris is on the edge of a comeback. Her band, her art, a life that’s finally hers again.

Then Nikolai walks in, and he is everything she never let herself want. Immediate. Intense. Certain. He proposes before their first date is over, and she laughs, and she doesn’t say no.

She should have.

One lie at a time, he moves in—into her house, her career, her daughter’s silence, her own sense of what’s real. Everyone keeps telling her how lucky she is. Only Summer can feel the walls getting closer.

By the time she understands what he’s doing, the exits are gone.

A slow-burn thriller about coercive control and the performances we mistake for love—and the most dangerous lie of all: the one she agreed to live inside.