I’m not boyfriend material. If a trail of broken hearts and a piss-poor record of failed relationships have taught me anything, it’s this. My buddies are happy to give me shit about my latest breakup from here to next Sunday. Thanks, but I’d rather have a root canal. And a vasectomy. At the same time. Relief comes in an unlikely package - the gorgeous and feisty Maren. She just so happens to be my best friend’s sister, so that’s not awkward at all.

I have three goals: graduate from an Ivy League university, get into medical school, and follow in my father's well-established footsteps. Everything was going exactly as planned until the local bad boy was delivered to my doorstep. Literally. From the moment we meet, my old life becomes unrecognizable, but I have no regrets. I'm utterly captivated by him. His smirk. His heart. His sharp wit. He pushes me to live, to be wild, to pursue the dream I've always hidden inside.

My plan was simple. Get invited onto his yacht. Find information to destroy him. But I wasn't prepared for Alaric Prince. Dangerous and seductive, he trapped me in his gilded cage. He calls me Dove. Easily preyed on. Easily broken. A man that ruthless only wants to crush me. I must resist the temptation to let him.

Richard Ramsey is the guitarist for the world’s hottest new band. Gifted. Charismatic. Hot as sin. Lend your ear, and he’ll steal your heart. Nah, you can’t have his, considering he left it in his hometown years ago. He knows better than going back. But it’s his younger sister’s wedding, and there’s no way he can say no to that. He should have known she would be there, invading his senses and making him thirst and hunger for what he wants most. 

Devney Maxwell has been my best friend since we were 6 years old, but she has no idea I’m in love with her. Even when I’m on the road playing professional baseball, she’s my home - the only one I’ve ever known. But when I return to Sugarloaf to care for the family farm, I discover she’s trying to talk herself into a life with the wrong man...and I become desperate. It only takes a single, perfect kiss to change everything.

My love story all started with a letter. Only it wasn’t from the man I’d eventually fall in love with. It was from his daughter. A sweet little girl named Birdie Maxwell who’d written to the magazine that I worked for. You see, once a year my employer fulfilled a few wishes for readers. Only that column didn’t start up again for months. So I fulfilled some of her wishes myself. It was harmless…so I thought. Until one day I took things too far. While anonymously granting yet another of Birdie’s wishes, I got a look at her father.

I got over Jaymes Grenier no problem. I never think about that little bow at the top of her pink lips, or the way her green eyes admired mine. Nope, I barely recall the way she fit so perfectly in my arms when I held her at night. The sweet way she would whisper she loved me has long faded from memory. These are the lies I regularly tell myself in hopes of believing them one day. Yeah, I was told I'd get over my first love.

Deacon was rough on the exterior, but apparently on the inside? Mr. Single-and-Ready-to-Mingle was a baby whisperer. After that night, we became friends. He’d go for coffee runs. Come over to chat. Normal friend stuff. But over time, our conversations ran deeper. We got closer. Until one night we crossed the line.  

Jack Dalton was charismatic. Johnny Outlaw was irresistible. Two sides of the same man, passionate about two things - music and Holliday Hughes. With her intoxicating mix of strength and vulnerability, confidence and sex appeal, he couldn't get enough of her.

At one point during the party, Alessandra said, “There’s nothing like a girl’s first love.” I knew she was talking about the first smash hit by my band, 22 Goats. Alessandra said it was the first song she’d heard by us and it “hit her like a ton of bricks”. Ironic, seeing as how I was having the same reaction from being in her presence.   

At first, the request seemed simple - sign a new athlete to the agency. Then I found out the new athlete was none other than the most wanted man in hockey today: Hunter Maddox. Gifted. Sexy. At the top of his game. And the only man who has ever broken my heart. If signing him will help save our family business, I’ll swallow my pride and do what’s asked. But when it becomes clear his uncharacteristic antics off the ice are a hint of something deeper, keeping things strictly professional between us becomes more than complicated. But I know better than to cross that line.

One Friday night, after a horrible day at work, Elena decides to cheer herself up with a one-night stand with a hot stranger. The guy who propositions her has a scorching bod and a sexy British accent. Cheered up? Check. Until Monday morning, when she walks into the office, and there he is. Her one-nighter is her boss's ex-husband, Chance Dixon.

The feud between Weston Lockwood and me started at the altar. Only neither of us attended the wedding, and the nuptials happened decades before either of us was born. Our grandfathers had been best friends and business partners, at least up until my grandfather’s wedding day - when his bride-to-be blurted out she couldn’t marry him because she was also in love with Weston‘s grandfather.  

Let me list the reasons why dating the sexy, charming pro hockey star is a bad idea: He’s one of my closest friends. All our friends are friends. The wounds I’ve got from past relationships go deep. And so do his. We’re both devoutly single - it’s just safer for the heart that way. But there’s no reason not to bid on the gorgeous, clever athlete at the charity auction this weekend. If I win, it’ll be a "friendsdate". 

I signed on the dotted line. A marriage contract to seal my union with the devil. I thought I knew what I was doing. His money and name were mine for the taking. But Camden Percy always gets exactly what he wants. And what he wants is me - my body, my obedience, my surrender. He wants to break me. But I'm Katherine Van Pelt. I'll never break. I'll never beg. I'll never give in. Except I promised him one more thing - a baby.