Enemies. Fire. No going back.Wren Calloway has ninety days to save her father's restaurant. The new owner is Ashworth Hospitality Group, and its CEO, Callum Ashworth, is exactly the kind of man who would tear down a neighborhood for a zip-code cocktail.Tall. Cold. Devastating in a suit and even worse behind a Venetian mask at his own masquerade gala.She tells him what she really thinks of him in front of half the city's food press. He offers her a deal she shouldn't take: hit an impossible revenue target, and Ember stays.What she doesn't expect is for him to keep showing up. At the end of her bar. After close. Watching her work like he's never seen anyone fight that hard for anything.Falling for the man trying to evict you is a terrible idea. Letting him kiss you against the walk-in door is catastrophic.And when a lawyer walks in on Day 74 to tell her the board is voting to void her lease because of their relationship, Wren realizes Callum didn't just risk the restaurant. He made everything she built look like it happened because she was in his bed.She walks out. He recuses himself from his own company to save her.They think they've won. They hit the number. They find each other in the alley behind Ember.Then the kitchen catches fire. And a city envelope arrives revealing the ground under Ember is owned by the man who destroyed Callum's family ten years ago. He's back. And security footage shows someone in a gold masquerade mask leaving Ember's back door at 2:14 a.m.SCORCHED is a spicy enemies-to-lovers, billionaire/small-town chef, forced proximity dark romance with a masquerade twist and a cliffhanger that will make you grab Book 2 instantl