
Introduction
What begins as a PR strategy quickly turns into forced cohabitation under constant surveillance. Lewis is cold, controlled, and unwilling to perform for the cameras. Audrey is sharp-tongued, honest, and unwilling to be intimidated.
But as the cameras keep rolling, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. What the world sees as a redemption story slowly becomes something neither of them expected—an emotional collision that exposes hidden wounds, buried truths, and a love neither of them was prepared for.
Chapter 1
AUDREY’S POV
I don't even like hockey.
I want to make that clear before anything else, because what happened tonight was entirely Matilda's fault, and I refuse to let history remember it any other way.
"You owe me," I said into my phone, squeezing past a guy in a jersey three sizes too big for the entrance of the stadium. “Excuse me. Sorry. Coming through,” I muttered in quick succession.
The stadium smelled like popcorn and body heat. I could practically feel excitement buzzing off the people. Way too much excitement for this simple sport played on ice. Couldn't be me. "I'm literally in the nosebleed section, Tilda."
"Audrey." Her voice crackled softly and I could tell she was about to blackmail me like always. "You're doing me the biggest favor of my life."
"You said that when I proofread your essay."
"This is bigger." I could hear the eyeroll in her tone.
I dropped into my seat— her seat, technically —and looked down at the rink. From up here, the players were tiny. Like little action figures someone had wound up and let loose. I squinted at them, trying to point out the one she wanted.
"Which one is he?"
"Number seven. Audrey. Come on, you've seen his face enough times on my wall." She whined.
I'd seen it, sure. Poster Lewis Jeremy was brooding and sharp-jawed and photographed like he knew exactly what the camera wanted from him. Real Lewis Jeremy, from this distance however, looked like everyone else— helmet, pads and moving too fast for me to track.
"Right," I said. "Number seven."
I held up her camera. The viewfinder made everything worse, honestly. I was not a sports photographer, and this camera cost more than my laptop.
"Please don't drop it," Matilda said.
"I'm not going to drop it." I assured her.
I was not absolutely going to drop it.
By the third period I had figured out which one was number seven. Hard to miss, honestly— not because I was paying attention, but because whenever something happened, the crowd's energy bent toward him like a compass finding north.
He was fast. Stupidly fast. The kind of fast that made you forget you didn't care.
Okay. Fine. I see why they were obsessed a little.
But I didn't say that out loud.
The Beanpot final. That's what the announcer kept calling it— “The Beanpot final, folks, and what a night”— and I gathered from the volume of the crowd that this was a big deal.
The Hartwell Wolves were winning. Number seven had scored twice and people around me were losing their minds in the way sports people do.
When the buzzer went, the stadium went insane.
I stood up because everyone around me stood up and I clapped because it felt weird not to. I even lifted the camera and got a few shots of the celebration— the players hugging, helmets off, the captain throwing his arms up—
And then number seven turned, and even from up here I could see the shift in him. His shoulders were hunched over and he was staring right at the captain.
No one noticed. But I did. He was skating towards the captain with a specific intent that made my stomach coil with unease.
What was he going to—
The punch landed before I understood what I was seeing.
One second the captain was laughing. The next, Lewis Jeremy's fist connected with his face, and the sound— even through the chaos— cut through everything.
The crowd went from euphoria to shocked silence in the span of a breath.
Then everyone started talking at once.
I stood there with Matilda's camera half-raised, staring down at the rink where two teammates were already pulling Jeremy back and I had only one thought. Matilda is going to lose her mind when I tell her.
The cold outside hit me like a punch as I stepped out.
Fuck.
I pulled my coat tighter and called her before I'd even made it to the bottom of the stadium steps. She picked up on the first ring.
"How was it? Did you get good shots? Was he amazing? Tell me everything —"
"He punched someone."
She went silent. Yeah, me too.
"He—what?"
"The captain. He just… right after they won, Tilda, in front of everyone just clocked him." I stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking.
The crowd was still spilling out around me, voices overlapping, everyone with their own version of what they'd just seen. "I got it on camera, I think. By accident."
"Oh my god."
"Yeah."
"Is he okay? Is Lewis okay?"
I blinked. "The captain's the one who got hit —"
"Audrey. Answer the question."
"I don't know, I left." I tucked the camera under my arm very carefully and weaved between a family taking up the whole pavement. "All I know is your precious idol is apparently a violent maniac with a temper problem. I watched him skate for two hours and the man smiled exactly zero times."
"He doesn't smile at games, that's just how he is when he's focused—"
"Matilda, he punched someone on live television."
"There must be a reason —"
"There's always a reason with people like that," I said. "Doesn't make it less of a red flag. He's got anger issues. Big ones. I'm telling you, there's something wrong with him."
I kept walking, still talking, working through everything I'd seen— the coldness of him, the way the celebration hadn't touched him at all, the way he'd looked at the captain right before—
I didn't notice the guy walking beside me until my elbow nearly clipped his arm.
I stepped to the side automatically and didn't look up. I just kept talking.
"Dalia is going to be so disappointed," I said into the phone. "She's had his poster since sophomore year, and now she's going to have to watch highlight reels of her favorite athlete committing assault—"
My foot caught on something. Something that definitely wasn't there a second ago.
Oh shit.
I didn't fall far— stumbled more than fell, one knee down, hands out— but the camera slipped.
I tried to grab it.
And I missed.
The crack of it hitting the pavement was the worst sound I'd ever heard in my life.
Oh fuck.
"Audrey? Audrey, what happened —"
I stared at the camera on the ground. The lens. The way it was sitting at an angle it definitely wasn't supposed to sit at.
"I'll call you back," I whispered and immediately hung up, my fingers trembling.
I crouched down and picked it up. Turned it over. Closed my eyes. Opened them.
Broken. The camera was obviously broken.
I looked up scanning the pavement like the universe might offer me some explanation, some stray pebble I could blame, some crack in the concrete that made me trip —
There was a guy a few feet away, walking like nothing had happened with his hands in his pockets, head down, dressed in a dark hoodie, plain, no jersey. Just a guy in a crowd.
But I caught his profile for half a second before the crowd swallowed him.
The tightness of his jaw. The way his gaze slid to mine coldly for a second.
My stomach dropped.
Lewis Jeremy.
What was he doing out here?
But he was already gone.
Last Chapters
#63 Chapter 63 Unrequited feelings.
Last Updated: 7/16/2026#62 Chapter 62 Prom date.
Last Updated: 7/15/2026#61 Chapter 61 The truth.
Last Updated: 7/13/2026#60 Chapter 60 Cheering her up
Last Updated: 7/11/2026#59 Chapter 59 Sharing her fears.
Last Updated: 7/10/2026#58 Chapter 58 Facing Challenges
Last Updated: 6/30/2026#57 Chapter 57 A mistake
Last Updated: 6/30/2026#56 Chapter 56 Unrequited feelings
Last Updated: 6/30/2026#55 Chapter 55 Getting them together.
Last Updated: 6/30/2026#54 Chapter 54 Uncovering the secret.
Last Updated: 6/30/2026
You Might Like 😍
Bella and Her Beast
.
Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?
.
"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."
Offside Temptation
Ethan Ryder was a disaster waiting to happen. Hot-headed, reckless, and constantly one bad decision away from ruining his career. I was supposed to hate him. Instead, I memorized him. I learned exactly how to push his buttons on the ice just to see the fire in his eyes.
When he grabbed my jersey in that locker room and kissed me in front of twenty cameras, it wasn't a mistake. It was the moment the line between hatred and obsession finally snapped. The media called it a scandal. They called us a divorced couple. But they didn't see the way Ethan trembled when I cornered him in the hallway afterward.
"You're staring again," he whispered, his back hitting the wall.
"You're still here," I replied calmly, stepping close enough to feel his erratic pulse.
He thought I was cold. He thought I was controlled. He didn't realize that every time he looked at me, I was fighting the urge to completely destroy the distance between us.
Now, the league is forcing us to live together, train together, and smile for the cameras to fix our public image. But the more time we spend alone in my apartment, the harder it is to pretend I just want to play hockey...
Iron And Glamour Just Don't Mix
Well… Sometimes you just might turn out to be right.
It turns out, the fae stole my little brother. In his place? A pixie with boundary issues and a talent for home repairs.
I’ve spent my life taking care of everyone else. So when my baby brother is taken, I don’t hesitate. I walk straight into a faerie mansion and make a bargain with its infuriatingly charming master.
Kie is everything you’d expect from a dangerous fae, beautiful, political, and entirely too amused by me. Power wrapped in a smirk. Sensual, mischievous, and far too aware of the effect he has on people. He agrees to help me find my brother.
For a price.
Now I’m bound by a faerie bargain and navigating a world of glamour, manipulation, and ancient rules I definitely should have learned sooner, enchanted forests, political games, magical contracts, and a fae lord who treats seduction like a perfectly reasonable negotiation tactic.
Iron is how I keep people out.
Glamour is how he draws them in.
And apparently, they just don’t mix.
Where The Ice Gives Way
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)
Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
Ignition And Ice; A Racer's Forbidden Blueprint
The first? Becoming an architect worthy of finally making her mark.
The second?
Convincing herself that one day, Hayes Gallagher–NHL superstar, lifelong best friend, and the man she’s secretly loved for years–will finally see her as more than the girl who’s always there when he needs her.
He doesn’t.
So when Hayes abandons her for yet another girl, Merritt decides she’s done waiting.
One reckless night later, she ends up in the arms of a stranger whose touch makes forgetting Hayes dangerously easy.
She never expects to see him again. Until that stranger turns out to be Stellan Mercer.
Formula One’s most infamous golden boy. And Hayes’s stepbrother who is the one man Hayes would rather destroy than share a room with.
When Stellan uses his influence to make Merritt lead designer on his luxury penthouse project, staying away from him becomes impossible.
Working behind closed doors quickly turns into a secret neither of them can afford. Because the more Merritt falls for the man she was never supposed to touch… the more Hayes realizes he may have lost the only girl who ever truly loved him.
And when jealousy, family rivalry, and the spotlight collide, Merritt will have to decide which dream she’s willing to lose.
Her career, her heart. Or both.
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
Cursed To Be His
At thirteen, everything changed.
After her parents were murdered, she was cursed by a powerful witch and used as a vessel for Elder magic. Saving her life came at an impossible cost; the curse was broken, but so was the wolf inside her, leaving her human.
Ten years later, Talia hides her grief behind sharp sarcasm and a smile she no longer believes. When a rogue attack proves she can no longer protect herself, or the people she loves, she leaves the only home she's ever known for the quiet human town of Ashbourne Hollow, determined to disappear.
Instead, she catches the attention of the town's most dangerous owner.
Alaric Lazarus is a vampire who rules from the black castle overlooking Ashbourne Hollow. He is cold, enigmatic, and impossible to read, but he awakens something in Talia she can't explain. She doesn't trust him. He trusts her even less.
Then vampires begin turning up dead.
Forced into an uneasy alliance, Talia and Alaric uncover a trail that leads back to the family she lost... and the curse she thought she'd escaped. As old enemies emerge from the shadows and buried secrets come to light, Talia discovers that everything she believed about her past was a lie.
Because the curse that stole her wolf was never meant to save her.
It was meant to lead her to him.
This is book 3 in the series, but it can be read as a standalone.
Book 1 - The Matchmaker
Book 2 - The Heir of Flame and Fang
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Tango with the Alpha's Heart
“He met her at the Alpha training camp,” he said. “She is a perfect suitor for him. It snowed last night, indicating that his wolf is happy with his choice.”
My heart sank, and tears made their way down my cheeks.
Alexander took my innocence last night, and now he is taking that thing in his office as his Luna.
Emily became the laughingstock of the pack on her 18th birthday and never expected the Alpha's son to be her mate.
After a night of passionate love, Emily finds out that her mate has taken a chosen mate. Heartbroken and humiliated, she disappears from the pack.
Now, five years later, Emily is a respected high-ranking warrior in King Alpha’s army.
When her best friend invites her to a night of music and laughter, she never expects to run into her mate.
Will her mate figure out it is her?
Will he chase after her, and most of all, will Emily be able to keep her secrets safe?
The New Girl and the Broken Basketball Star
After years of feeling unwanted by the father who should have protected her, Clara is finally forced to leave the only home she has ever known. Her stepmother’s pregnancy only makes it easier for her family to let her go.
With nothing but her mother’s old violin, she arrives in a small Pennsylvania town carrying the fear that she will never truly belong anywhere.
The last thing she expects is Adrian Cole.
Once the town’s basketball star, Adrian gave up his dreams after his father disappeared and left him with debts he never should have carried. Now he spends his days repairing cars, avoiding the court, and pretending he doesn’t want anything more from life.
Clara thinks she is too broken to be loved.
Adrian thinks his future is already over.
But somewhere between physics lessons, late nights at the repair shop, and a forgotten small-town high school, two lonely people begin to find something they both thought they had lost forever:
A reason to stay.
✦ ✦ ✦
A tough exterior with a soft heart x A soft exterior with a strong heart
✦ ✦ ✦
The first half is set in high school, and the second half is set during their college years. Hope you enjoy the journey!
This is a slow-paced story, focused more on emotions, healing, and the small moments in life rather than intense action or dramatic twists.
If you find any mistakes while reading, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to correct them.
I hope ordinary Clara, ordinary Adrian, and all of us ordinary people can find the happiness we deserve.
One Weekend with the Billionaire
I open my mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a staggered breath and a small sigh. He chuckles, a low, rough rumble and then leans down and kisses the middle of my back.
I feel the tip of him again at my entryway. He pushes in slightly, and my body comes to life again. My muscles react to his presence, contracting and loosening, as if my body is trying to suck him deep inside.
He's my husband's boss, so this is supposed to be wrong.
So why does it feel so right?
Braxton Merriweather always gets what he wants. Now, he wants her--Julia Thompson, the wife of one of his workers. From the moment he first laid eyes on her, he knew he had to possess her in every way.
When Jeff Thompson takes him up on the bargain he proposes, Braxton is shocked. He's even more surprised when Mrs. Thompson agrees.
But now that he's had a taste of her, he wants more. How can he possess a woman who's already married to someone else?
Julia feels trapped by her marriage to her high school sweetheart. In the two years since they've been married, he's changed, and not for the better. When billionaire Braxton Merriweather shows interest in her, she's flattered. And intrigued. Is it possible that one of the richest men in the world could really want her?
And if so... what does she do about her husband?
One Weekend with the Billionaire is a sexy story for mature readers.
Oops. My Boss Was Seventeen
The Execution: Perfect. I brought him coffee, cheered at his games, and basically operated as his unpaid teenage executive assistant. He’s totally buying it.
The Problem: I was trying to network my way into the C-suite. I think I just networked my way into his bed.












