ChristieK

Finneas Alexander Barlow is a walking thirst trap. Tall, hot, and broody. Tousled brown hair, chiseled jaw, alluring green eyes, perfect teeth, well-groomed beard, broad shoulders, and lips good enough to bite. He’d look like a Disney prince if the prince was a broody ahole. Four years ago, a fated meeting led to an inevitable hook-up. Just one. It’s his rule. One-time hook-ups, no information exchanges, and no repeats. I knew that even before he established his boundaries, and he kept his promise. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

I live my life head over heart and never rock the boat, which is how I wound up engaged to Bryan Davenport—the biggest mistake I ever made. We were a power couple, but no one knew how cruel he could be behind closed doors. When I decide to leave, my fiancé shows just how ruthless he can be and sends me running to the last person I expect: his best man.

I've always been a tough North Shore girl. Fighting is in my blood, survival in my DNA. But two years ago, Caden King broke me, and he has proof of it. Now he wants to blackmail me into doing a job for him. The kind that puts my chance of escaping the North Shore at risk. The kind that means betraying my own crew.

He was more than a bully, he was what living nightmares were made of. It started as a childish game played between two friends, which ended in heartbreak. She knew him once. A long time ago they may have even called each other friends. That was before she moved away, before her mother married his father, and before an entire life fell apart. She lost friends, popularity, and a future. This was supposed to be a fresh start, but it was real life hell.

Being the founder of a non-profit and keeping it going is my only focus right now. I don't have time for distraction–men, my health, my friends–all of it takes a back seat to me keeping this going. I've lived by other people's rules for too long, I am ready to break out on my own, and I'll prove to everyone I can do it. The Crown Project helps sick children and their families find some happiness during hard times, and I am committed to making it happen. If I can't have my own, I'll give someone else a fairytale.

Killian Barclay has had enough heartache to last a lifetime, and he has no more need for love—earning him the reputation of a broody Scot and eventually turning his famous ancestral home into a den of iniquity. It doesn't take long for tales of his raunchy house parties to reach the rest of his family, though, inspiring them to hatch a plan to shake Killian out of his routine.

From the moment she fell out of the tree in his backyard, ruining his eighth birthday party, Genesis Stoll had been Kye Levine’s best friend. The one person he knew would be there no matter what. She was his escape, his sunshine when the darkness in his world got too deep. When he had her to run to, he knew no matter how twisted his life got, she would remind him who he was. He would never lose himself. She wouldn’t let him. Genesis had loved Kye most of their life; in a way, she knew Kye didn’t reciprocate.

In a moment of weakness I sent out a cry for help—one that was answered by my estranged brother’s right-hand man. A murderer. A butcher. He storms into my life with his expensive suit pockets full of sedatives and cable ties in case I don’t approve of his form of protection. Let me assure you, I don’t. But when my world falls apart and I have nowhere else to go, I’m forced to escape with him.

For the past forty years, I've done an excellent job at every single one of them. Until Millie Hall. To be fair, I had no idea who she was that first night. Can't say the same about the second. Finding out that the mystery girl who turned my world upside down was the twin sister of my star left winger and my best friend's twenty-two-year-old daughter is less than ideal.

Commitment is not my thing nor do I want it to be. After the things I’ve been through with women, I have sworn off relationships. There’s only ever been one woman that I thought I felt pulled to and I blew it. Not only was it the best date of my life, it was also the worst night of my life. Since then, I have become a nail and bail kind of guy. But then Sunday Sutton bursts back into my life, and ends up living with her son and their pet chicken across the hall from me.