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Built for a Ghost: I gave her everything. She gave it all to him.
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 20 2026
Pages: 342
Weight: 0.91
Height: 0.85 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Darren Hollis is an eighteen-year-old architecture student in Chicago with empty pockets and a dangerous savior complex. Tessa Collier is a terrified art history student drowning in the overwhelming isolation of Florence, Italy. When a chance encounter on a late-night internet forum sparks an electric, transatlantic connection, Darren's entire universe narrows down to the glowing screen of his phone.
Separated by four thousand miles and a brutal seven-hour time difference, Darren begins to systematically dismantle his own life to keep Tessa afloat. He sacrifices his health, his social life, his finances, and his sanity to keep her confident, pass her classes, and keep the ghost of her past at bay. He tells himself he is the only one who truly understands her. He tells himself he is saving her.
When Tessa finally visits Chicago, their emotional bond explodes into a breathtaking, intoxicating physical romance. Under the freezing midwestern sky, Darren proposes with a cheap pawn-shop ring. Tessa says yes. He promises to become a legendary architect, secure their future, and buy them an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows. He promises to be her savior.
But the most dangerous promise you can make is the one you make to a broken person in the dark.
As a global pandemic locks down the world, the physical distance between them transforms into a suffocating emotional void. Darren works himself into the ground, driven by obsessive love and blind ambition, finally securing a massive contract and the exact luxury apartment they dreamed of. But on the day he is ready to hand her the kingdom, a single photograph shatters his reality. Tessa hasn't just been pulling away. She has been living a lie, performing a devastating betrayal with the very monster she claimed broke her.
The boy who loved her dies on the cold marble floor of an empty apartment.
Five years later, the ghost returns.
Darren is no longer the exhausted, bleeding romantic who begged for her affection. He is a ruthless, wealthy, emotionally impenetrable senior partner at a top architecture firm. He has built a life of sharp edges, glass, and steel-a fortress designed to keep the world out. But when Tessa unexpectedly appears at a high-society gala, stripped of her pride and scrubbing floors in a stained uniform, the power dynamic is violently reversed.
Now, Tessa is standing in the freezing snow outside his window, silently begging for the angel who used to walk through fire for her.
And Darren has to decide whether to open the door, or turn off the lights forever.
A masterpiece of emotional devastation and psychological suspense.Built for a Ghost is a dark, unflinching, and compulsively readable novel that blurs the lines between contemporary romance and domestic thriller. Told through the raw, confessional, first-person perspective of the man left behind, this book explores the terrifying limits of unconditional love, the toxicity of the savior complex, and the brutal cost of unrequited devotion.
Perfect for readers who crave:
- Intense, dark contemporary romance with massive emotional stakes
- Psychological domestic thrillers about cheating, infidelity, and betrayal
- Morally complex characters and toxic relationship dynamics
- A male point-of-view (POV) full of angst, heartbreak, and ultimate revenge through success
- A gripping coming-of-age story that ends with a jaw-dropping, thought-provoking climax
Click Buy Now to dive into the emotional thriller that will leave your heart shattered and your mind racing long after the final page.
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