The first time I see my high school crush since graduation, I’m a 30-year-old woman laying on the table for a pap smear. He’s the hot, newly single doctor who just moved back to his hometown, hoping to find some stability for his daughter. Meanwhile, I’m a hot mess, just fired from my job and ousted from company housing. I’m living in my old bedroom and trying to get my appointments in before my insurance runs out along with what little is left of my money.

Confession: I’m known for writing the best happily ever afters… but I don’t believe in love. But you’re not allowed to say that on live TV when you’re promoting the movie based on your book. The movie producers will get really mad and threaten to cancel the sequel. Unless you can prove to the public that you have a boyfriend. A real one not nestled in the pages of a book.

By thirty, you’re supposed to have a home, a dog, a boyfriend or at least a string of lovers in the past. Instead, I’m a twenty-eight-year-old virgin living with my parents to save money. My job managing an apartment complex is the one thing I’m proud of–and that’s not just because a complete hottie just walked in the door. Tyler Griffen is here working on a construction project for nine months, which means we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Which I don’t mind one bit if it means getting more face time with those tattooed, muscled arms and his heart melting smile.

His butchered haircut wasn’t entirely my fault, but now I’m questioning my decision to move back to my small hometown. After years of working in the city and getting nowhere, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to buy my own salon. All I have to do is prove to the current owner that I'm committed to the salon and Cottonwood Falls. Also located in Cottonwood Falls? Rhett Griffen, the one who broke my heart beyond repair all those years ago.

Getting dumped by my fiancé and going to the bar was not a good look. Neither was stealing condoms from the student supply and going home with a complete stranger. But here I was. And I quickly find out this man isn’t a stranger after all. He’s the father of one of my students, which makes him completely off limits.

When you reach rock bottom, the only place to go is up.... Or, for me, apparently it’s straight into the arms of the one person who’s off-limits. My brother’s good friend and my new roommate.

Who leaves their girlfriend in the woods after a fight? My now ex-boyfriend, that’s who. One fight—okay, a big fight—because I found out he was cheating on me while we were camping, and poof! He left me in the woods. So, I start walking to town, only I end up at the river, where I meet Axel. This guy is huge. With a storm rolling in, I don’t have much choice but to trust him and take shelter in his cabin, since I’ve been walking for hours away from town. Several days of rain wash out the road and it looks like I’m stuck here with my giant.

Look, I've had it bad for the girl with all the curves next door forever. She turned me down in high school and since I'm not a total douchecanoe, I lusted after her all by myself in my shower, and we stayed just friends for years. Now she's the adorkable librarian next door, and I'm the star quarterback of the best pro football team in the league. So when she asks me to be her fake date to her all-girls school reunion, I am totally down to show her off to the mean girls who bullied her back then so they can see just how incredible she is.

There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t date Fletcher Huxley. He’s a growly-faced, stubborn-streaked, international rugby legend trying to revive his flailing career in the US after being canned by his team overseas. While he might have the good kind of thunder thighs, intriguing tattoos, and a booty of steel, he also holds the top position on my very short nemesis list thanks to what happened the first time we met.

Tristan Stiles is the bane of my existence. He never wears a shirt. We can’t seem to stop fighting. He’s an arrogant playboy with a filthy reputation. Sure, I had a crush on him when I was fourteen but that was a long time ago. I know better than to trust him. I just need to survive long enough to find a new job and get a new place. And not accidentally let Tristan show me exactly how well-deserved his reputation is.

I’m a big girl, “plus-sized”, whatever. I’m sick of hearing about it, especially since my doctor diagnosed me with PCOS. So when mean girl Merritt shot her mouth off about how fat people should just lose weight, I couldn’t take it anymore. And now I’ve got a huge problem. To prove curvy girls like me can get happily-ever-afters too, I have to get our school’s quarterback, Beckett Langley, to take me to homecoming. And he doesn’t know I even exist. But it’s not hopeless. Four other girls just like me are willing to help, because enough is enough.

After I returned to my small hometown six months ago to attend my estranged grandmother's funeral, I swore I would never go back. That is, until my grandmother's lawyer calls me up. If I don't return to Harmony Island and fulfill my grandmother's stipulations, the generationally owned family inn will be turned over to the state and sold off to the highest bidder—my grandmother's rival and mother to the man who broke my heart, Missy Willis. I'm not sure I'm strong enough to return home, but I also know, I can't let Miss Willis win. 

Rule number one of Wall Street: don’t fall in love with your billionaire boss. I hate my boss. The Wall Street tycoon is a jerk. A world-class alpha-hole. Devastatingly handsome but terribly flawed. He goes through assistants like I go through vanilla lattes, and I need this job. But I went to school with bullies like him, so I’m not afraid. I hate my attraction to him. How sparks fly when we spar. The way he barks orders and dresses me down. I hate how I fantasize about him during and after work hours.

I'm not interested in starting something deep and meaningful, but what I am interested in is the way your body reacts to mine when we're in the same room. You probably assume the concentration on my face is work-related, when in reality, I'm figuring out which I want more: to nail you against the wall, or to bend you over my desk.

The uptight valedictorian lost a bet, and now the whole school’s talking about her kiss with the cocky quarterback... It's just one kiss. That's what everybody at the end-of-summer party says when the bane of my existence wins a challenge and demands a kiss. But it's not just a kiss because everyone knows we've been enemies since kindergarten. So when school starts up, that kiss is all anyone's talking about. Even my crush has taken notice, and I think...maybe he's jealous? And suddenly my enemy's plan to use this rumor to our mutual advantage doesn't seem so crazy, after all.