Fire and Ash

Don’t touch the rich girls. Those are the rules. They come to Wicked every spring break, and I make it a rule to never get attached. But this year, everything’s changed. That doe-eyed little girl who used to watch me through the window of my tattoo shop is all grown up and determined to make my life hell. What she doesn’t know is that beneath these tattoos is a seedy habit and a life of crime.

Three months on a private island. Two men. One million dollars. All I have to do is tame Nash Wilde. It’s been two years since my sister and her boyfriend were killed in a plane crash. The last person I expected to show up on my doorstep was his father, Alistair Wilde. Yet, he came with an offer I’d be an idiot to pass up: be his son’s girlfriend for three months, live with the two of them in a remote house, and the one million dollars is mine.

Hermosa Beach seems to be the place for throwing together unlikely opposites. My rooster Rowdy and his new crush, Pixy the goat. Me and the obnoxiously cocky cowboy from Texas.... But unlike Rowdy and Pixy, there’s no way I’m going to fall for David Strickland. Nope. Not gonna happen. I could never be with a man so completely opposed to everything I believe...no matter how hot he is.

I’m just so exhausted—always living on the edge of desperation, one paycheck away from ruin. But this new job… It could be the fresh start I need. It could change everything. The contract is only for three months, but if I keep my head down, work hard, and prove myself, maybe I could stay longer. Maybe I could make Black Mountain Lodge my home. As I pull down the gravel drive, surrounded by the forest and mountains and bright blue skies, I feel something I haven’t felt in a while. I feel hope.

What do you do when your boyfriend cheats on you six days before your brother’s wedding? The same wedding where you’re the maid of honor and the man who obliterated your heart eight years ago is the best man? I can tell you what you should not do. You should absolutely not have an emotional meltdown and let your soon to be sister-in-law find you crying into a glass of pink wine. Because then she will tell your overprotective big brother that you’re heartbroken (even if you’re not), and he will take it upon himself to ask the one man he trusts above all others to look out for you.