"Something awful and illuminating happens when a marriage ends. All illusions fade away. Light spills into the darkest corners of the union, forcing you to face the cracks. The moments bereft of love. The nights without affection. The days spent learning to be quiet and still, expecting nothing because that's all you've ever been given.
But then it's done and you're supposed to be free except you're not. You're carrying it all with you. You're holding it close like a lover, making space for it to join you in every room, and it comes happily. An unwelcome plus one sitting in every seat beside you until someone comes along and makes it leave.
For me, that someone is Xavier Allen. Tall, dark, fine as hell and good in bed. He's everything I should want in my next partner, the only trouble is, he's also my divorce lawyer.
Contains mature themes."
"Mallory
Hope is a dangerous thing. It holds you close like a lover, whispering promises it never intends to keep, and just as soon as you relax into its arms, it lets you go. Sending you spinning into an abyss of nothingness. When I sent him away four years ago, he promised he would come back to me, and even as I asked him not to, I hoped that he would.
Christopher
Life without Mallory Kent has taught me that time doesn't heal wounds. It turns them into scars. My first scar formed when I was just a child. Too young to fully understand what my mother's loss would mean for my life but old enough to remember the echo of the pain inside my empty chest. It was a unique agony. One I never expected to feel again.
But that was before I loved her. Before I let things that had nothing to do with us cost me everything.
It's been four years since I decided to honor her request to stay away. To move on with my life and give her a chance to move on with hers. And she might not agree, but it was more than enough time for us to try and do the impossible. The only thing our time apart has done is remind me that wherever she is, is where I'm supposed to be.
Now I just have to make her believe it."
"Mallory: The day Christopher Johnson decided to kill me, I already knew what it was like to die. I had already experienced it once. Having the life leeched from my body, blood stolen from my veins, oxygen pulled from my lungs. When he decided to walk back into my life, I was in the middle of my third resurrection, healing from the loss of my brother when I was still raw from losing him. It wasn't going well. I guess the human heart can only stop so many times, can only take so much damage before it questions whether it's worth it to be revived. My heart is on its last leg, but even that can't stop me from seizing the chance to have him again.
Chris: Walking away from Mallory Kent is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Coming back had always been a part of the plan. Even as I gave in to the forces hellbent on tearing us apart, I knew we weren't done. I just didn't know we'd come back together like this: under a cloud of unexpected grief with the pain of our stolen future lingering just beneath the surface. This time together was never supposed to happen. I hadn't accounted for it when I started working to clear a path back to her, but I'm thankful for it. For the opportunity to comfort her in a way no one else can. For the chance to hold her until the demons in my life force me to walk away again.
Contains mature themes."
"Jaxon Daniels was supposed to be my forever.
I've loved him since I was thirteen years old, and like a foolish little girl, I believed that our love would carry us through everything. Every challenge. Every obstacle. Every heartbreak. But that was before I knew anything about pain and the challenge of overcoming crushing disappointment. Before I knew that loving someone doesn't always mean you get to have them, sometimes it means you have to let them go.
Now, thanks to my sister marrying his brother at a romantic resort in Mexico, he's back in my orbit. Making me question the choice I made all those years ago, reminding me of our history every time he looks me in the eye, touching me like I still belong to him, and demanding that I give him another chance.
In my life. In my bed. In my heart.
And as tempted as I am to say yes, there's still a part of me that can't forget what it was like to let him go, to live with our broken forever haunting me.
I survived losing him once, but I'm not so sure I can do it again.
Contains mature themes."
"Mallory
The first time I kissed Christopher Johnson, I knew he would be my biggest mistake. It was supposed to be a simple business arrangement, a few months of playing a role that came far too easily to the both of us, but it wasn't long before it became more. Love. Devotion. Heartbreak in its truest form.
Some people say life is for the living, but I say life is for the prepared. To avoid unfortunate complications like having your heart broken by a man past experiences taught you, you never should have trusted in the first place.
Christopher
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do for Mallory Kent. She's strong, serious, and always in control of every situation around her, which is why the second I see her looking panicked and uncertain in the arms of a figure from her past, I don't think. I just act.
I had no idea that one small decision would lead to this. A fake relationship—designed to solve her problems and mine—turned real. An earth shattering love torn apart by the very forces that led to its conception. There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do for Mallory Kent, including break her heart to save her soul.
Contains mature themes."
"Sloane: Dominic Alexander is my late husband's best friend and the last man that I should want. For the last ten years, he's taken a sick pleasure in making me feel paper thin, like my existence is of no consequence to him at all.
But now, things are different.
After a drunken night, and a surprisingly sexy act of heroism, he's started to be . . . nice. Treating me like something other than the embodiment of his annoyance, which would be nice if it didn't make me feel things I swore to never feel for another man after my husband died.
Dominic: Sloane Kent is going to be my undoing.
What's worse: I think I'm going to enjoy being unraveled by the gold flecks in her hazel eyes and the way she scrunches her nose when we're arguing, which we've done a lot of over the past decade. She thinks it's because I hate her, and I've let her think that because the alternative is . . . untenable.
But something is changing between us, and I don't know how to stop myself from breaking every promise I've ever made to myself regarding my best friend's wife. Promises that include never telling her that there's a long list of things I feel about her, but hate isn't one of them.
Contains mature themes."
