Off-Limits Romance

After that close-up of his package on the sailboat in Morocco, TMZ started calling him Crown Jewels. Not that I keep track of Prince Liam. Definitely don’t stalk him online like my friends do. I’m out of that scene now. My family’s reality show might still be running, but I’ve been off-screen for a while. When people pass me on the sidewalk, they might squint, but most of them don’t scream “Lucy Rhodes” and ask about my love of Lucky Charms or how my broken toe healed. Prince Liam - my stalking his Instagram - that’s just for fun. It’s my dirty little secret.

The boy next door. That's what he was. Dash Frasier - my hero from the day we met, when I was six and he was nine. His sister was my best friend, the three of us one happy crew. Then one sweaty summer night changed everything. No one understood me like Dash. No one made me feel so loved. That's why, when he skipped town, it wrecked me. Now I'm older. Wiser. I've just snagged my dream job, writing at a film studio. The lead animator on my project? You guessed it.

She was my foster sister, her luxurious house the only home I'd ever known. I fell in love with Evie before her doctor parents signed my adoption papers. They threw me out the day they caught us. Now I'm Dr. Jones, so far removed from who I used to be, it seems like a bad dream. I tell myself nothing can touch me. Until I see the residency roster at Alpine University Hospital. There's only two incoming neurosurgery residents each year. This year it's Landon Jones - and Evie Rutherford.

You’ve heard this story before. Woman feels her biological clock ticking and gets someone to knock her up. Not for love, for baby. Crazy, right? That’s what I thought. Then I found out my fiancé had a vasectomy. The life I thought I had? Nope. Suddenly I’m 33, and I don’t even have a kissing buddy. When my mom’s health takes a turn and I wind up back in my hometown of Fate, Alabama, I tell myself to leave things up to…well, you know. Then I see Gabriel McKellan. He’s Fate’s most famous son, a best-selling author who is beautiful, complicated, and living below me.