He chose revenge. Then he chose Lena.

Dr. Daniel Carter has never forgotten what Mark Monroe did to his career, and he has no intention of leaving the debt unpaid.

He knows exactly where to hurt him: Lena Monroe.

Daniel arranges the accident that brings Lena into his ER, placing himself exactly where he needs to be when she wakes. From there, he has access, time, and every reason to become part of her life. Seducing Mark’s wife is not an impulse or a fantasy. It is the revenge Daniel has chosen, and he intends to see it through.

Then he comes across Lena’s private manuscript and learns something Mark apparently never bothered to understand.

The woman Daniel planned to seduce is already lonely inside her marriage. She has spent years being the wife and mother everyone relies on while keeping her frustration, fantasies, and desires on the page, including needs Daniel recognizes immediately because they answer something fundamental in his own nature.

That knowledge changes the terms.

Daniel still wants revenge, but Lena is no longer valuable because she belongs to Mark. He wants her because he knows who she is when nobody else is looking, and because for the first time in years, he can imagine allowing a woman into the life he built around himself and his eleven-year-old daughter, Sophie, after his wife abandoned them both.

Lena believes an accident brought Daniel Carter into her life.
Nothing about Daniel Carter is accidental.
And by the time she discovers what he arranged, revenge may be the smallest part of what he has taken from Mark Monroe.

Reader Note & Content Warning

Hostile Takeover explores psychologically complex relationships, revenge, manipulation, marital dissatisfaction, infidelity, and consensual dominant/submissive dynamics.

Some intimate scenes include strong power exchange, control, sexual submission, and conversations around desire that may be uncomfortable or intense for some readers.

Parts of Lena’s exploration of dominance were informed by real conversations I had with a professional dominatrix, who gave me permission to draw from those discussions and to use her name in the book. Those conversations helped shape the psychological and practical details of the power dynamic portrayed here.

At the end of the book, you can also read a story-style account of one of those conversations and see some of the real discussion that inspired Lena’s journey.

Please read according to your own comfort level.

Note from the Author

This one is rather special to me. It was the first novel I wrote, years ago, and I finally published it two years ago.

At the end of the book, you can also read a story-style account of one of my conversations with Barbara and see some of the real discussion that inspired Lena’s journey.

Thank you for giving Lena, Daniel, and a little piece of Barbara’s world a chance. Enjoy! ❤️

Hostile Takeover is the complete Lena and Daniel novel and the official beginning of the current Carter Dynasty reading path.