
Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Tropes
Themes
Synopsis
Maura Matthews is beautiful, sharp-tongued, and utterly uninterested in romance—the perfect contract wife. Except nothing about her feels like a transaction. She's an artist who gets paint all over my furniture, laughs at my color-coded schedules, and sees through every wall I've built like they're made of glass. I see her too. The way she flinches when her father enters a room. How she talks about the future like it's borrowed time—like she knows something I don't. Something that could shatter us both. I should walk away. Protect what's left of my frozen heart. Instead, I have one year to get her pregnant—and one taste of her makes me want to burn the contract and keep her for good. If my wife thinks I'll let anything take her from me now, she doesn't know what kind of villain she married. Pretty Cruel Villain is a billionaire contract marriage romance with high-heat, a cold hero who cracks wide open, and a secret that changes everything. It is the third book in the House of Cards series but can be read as a complete standalone.
Tags
Pretty Cruel Villain: content & age rating
Intended for adult readers (18+).
This adult romance contains explicit sexual content, a contract marriage premise requiring pregnancy, power imbalance dynamics, and implications of family abuse. The hero is described as a 'villain' with controlling tendencies.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, explicit sexual content, and moderate language. Content notes include emotional abuse, power imbalance, and pregnancy (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Adult readers will be drawn to the intense chemistry between the guarded billionaire and the free-spirited artist in this high-heat contract marriage story.