Homicide detective Charlie Fletcher is a man intimately familiar with wanting things he can’t keep.

A faithful ex-wife.

A bank account that stays out of the red.

An apartment with a working AC and fewer vermin.

A daughter whose little heart doesn’t hurt so damn much.

And then there’s Seraphina Lewis.

The mayor’s assistant. A classically trained dancer. Every filthy fantasy Charlie has ever had, and pure temptation wrapped in pencil skirts and sharp heels.

She’s elegant, polished, and expensive: everything his life isn’t.

But that doesn’t stop him from wanting her anyway.

For years, they’ve orbited each other. Close enough for obsession. Not quite close enough to satisfy it.

Charlie’s spent too long watching Sera from a distance, starving for something he can never have.

Just one taste.

One night.

One lifetime.

It doesn’t feel like too much to ask.

But Charlie’s daughter adores Sera, and for the first time in her five-year-old life, she has a woman who loves her the way a mother should.

If Charlie gives in to the temptation simmering between them and ruins it the way he ruins everything else, it won’t just cost him the woman he wants.

It’ll shatter his daughter’s heart too.