Every day is a struggle for Brian McCain. Betrayed by his best friend and abandoned by his country, he feels broken and unable to connect with anyone. But Tori Donovan is different. She shines a light into his darkness and keeps the demons at bay, at least for a little while.

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.

There wasn’t a lot that surprised me. My years in the Navy taught me a lot, my years hunting human traffickers taught me the rest. Meeting a beautiful woman in a bar and spending the night with her should’ve been a blip on my radar. Instead, I spent years trying to forget her. In the middle of a rescue operation, fate dropped her back into my life, but there was a twist—she wasn’t alone.

Brady Hewitt was all too familiar with the horrors of war. They clung to him, or maybe he clung to them, using the nightmares as an excuse to keep others at bay—especially his boss’ daughter, Hadley Walker. Beautiful, sexy, ambitious, and forbidden. Not just because the former Special Forces soldier respected her father and liked his job, she was too good for him—all sunshine and smiles while he was darkness and filth.

I’m not looking for a hero, and definitely not a fake relationship with my new boss, nightclub owner Dante Fury—over six feet of dark, hot, and dangerous. But he isn’t taking no for an answer. The plan was to run, live under the radar, survive. My life’s been destroyed by some very bad people and everything I know is gone—career, friends, family. I thought I could hide as a bartender at New Orleans’ hottest new club, Ember.