Cristine Winters is beautiful, ambitious, and always thinking three moves ahead.
She does not date for love. She studies men, measures their influence, and decides whether they can help her reach the next level. Every connection has a purpose, every smile has strategy behind it, and every powerful man is another possible step toward the life she refuses to stop chasing.
Then she meets Brayden Hunt.
Brayden is wealthy, handsome, and connected to Houston’s most influential investors, developers, and political insiders. As the face of a major real estate project, he has the access Cristine needs to move beyond consulting and establish herself as a respected power player.
Brayden believes he has finally met a woman who matches his ambition. Cristine sees something different.
A doorway.
She gives Brayden just enough attention to keep him interested, just enough affection to make him trust her, and just enough loyalty to make him believe they are building something together. While Brayden falls harder, Cristine quietly turns his introductions, business contacts, and public project into opportunities of her own.
But Brayden Hunt is not blind.
When his closest advisor, Brice, begins digging into Cristine’s past, old secrets surface about Terrence Vale—the first influential man Cristine used to climb the corporate ladder. Brayden soon realizes Cristine may not be standing beside him.
She may be standing on him.
Instead of walking away, Brayden changes the game. He offers Cristine a deal that could protect her growing reputation while placing her future firmly under his control.
Now Cristine must decide whether Brayden is still useful, whether he has become dangerous, or whether he is the first man capable of making her feel something she never planned for.
Because Cristine Winters came looking for power.
She never expected to find a man who could see beneath the strategy.
Seductive, emotionally intense, and filled with manipulation, ambition, betrayal, wealthy power players, and a morally gray female antihero, Cristine Winters: Love Was Never the Plan is perfect for readers who enjoy urban fiction, contemporary Black romance, psychological drama, powerful women, toxic relationships, and complicated love stories.
Love was never the plan.
Brayden was only supposed to be the first step.
