Since escaping an uncomfortable home life where her mother married her bully's father, Marissa thought she was done accepting betrayal. Until she walks in on her boyfriend sleeping with someone she considered a close friend. To make matters worse, she has to keep holding things in because her pseudo-sister is in a high-risk pregnancy and her husband is her ex's best friend. After enduring months of holding things in to keep the peace, she's faced with the ultimate betrayal: they're naming the baby after her cheating ex. As if that wasn't enough, her manager had lied to her about a promotion, and her incompetent subordinate was now her boss. Done with being everyone's pushover, Marissa decides to take a step back from the friends who betrayed her, quit her toxic job, and find a lucrative job in the company of her dreams. The catch? She will have to work under her childhood bully, turned stepbrother, Gideon. And as an added stipulation, she'll need to go back home for Friday night dinner every week. Now she'll have to decide if her career is worth returning home and facing demons she'd been keeping at bay for almost a decade.

Lena has hated Jace Hartley with a burning passion since kindergarten. But when everything she thought she knew about Hartley suddenly changes, will she still cling to the familiar feud between them, or will she slip and fall into something far more terrifying? *** Sarcastic rich girl Lena Montez is sure about one thing. Jace Hartley is the worst person. Ever. They've been playing a game of pranks and one-ups for over a decade, fueled by their never-ending feud and mutual burning hatred for the other. But when a car accident keeps Lena at home for months, she returns to school to find that something is different. Instead of spilling his drink over her, Jace is offering to carry her books. Instead of making rude comments about her, he is sending her pretty smiles and gentle laughs. Suddenly, Lena finds herself walking a tightrope between hate and something else. [[word count: 100,000-150,000]]

"Little Valerie," said Kai, bending closer to me. "Are you blackmailing me into dating you?" He didn't seem particularly disturbed by the notion. In fact, he remained completely amused. "Yes?" Kai grinned. "Very mafia of you. I'm weirdly kind of into it." *** When Valerie Williams discovers that her long-term boyfriend is sleeping with her best friend, she devises a revenge plot to get back at them both. But when she asks bad boy Kai Delaney to pretend to date her, she never thought her heart would be on the line. *** Self-proclaimed pessimist Valerie Williams is definitely your glass-half-empty kind of girl. However, Valerie is surprisingly optimistic when her (ex) boyfriend cheats on her with her (also ex) best friend. Valerie doesn't believe in holding grudges; she believes in getting even. Which doesn't seem easy, until her boyfriend's least favourite person and her best friend's long-standing crush, the sarcastic, cocky and popular bad boy extraordinaire Kai Delaney crashes, quite literally, into her life. When Kai accidentally hits her car with what is practically a monster truck, and can barely afford to cover it, Valerie has an idea. If Kai agrees to pretend to date her, for long enough to make her boyfriend and best friend regret their actions, Valerie will give him the duration of their scam to pull together the money to pay her back. Revenge is a dish best served fake. [150,000-200,000 words]

She came to South Grove to disappear. He never expected she'd be the one thing he couldn't ignore. After fleeing an abusive marriage, Lily Carrington has reinvented herself in the quiet beach town of South Grove, North Carolina. With a new name, now Ellery Townsend, a secluded cottage by the ocean, and a dream of opening her own bakery, she's determined to build a life that's finally hers. No past. No lies. No one looking too closely. Cash Connolly is a grumpy, guarded CPA with no patience for complications-and no shortage of women trying to change his mind. But when a quiet, stubborn baker walks into his office needing help with her books and pretending she knows what a profit and loss statement is, she throws off his rhythm in all the wrong ways. And maybe all the right ones. But Ellery's past isn't finished with her. As sparks fly and trust builds, the truth she's worked so hard to bury comes back with a vengeance. And when the man she thought she escaped finally finds her, it will take everything-including the one person she never expected-to protect the life she's just begun to believe she deserves.

Delaney James was wearing Chanel the night her husband told her he didn't love her anymore. In an instant, her picture-perfect Manhattan life-complete with a brownstone on the Upper East Side, a blossoming career as a fashion journalist, and a devastatingly handsome, high-powered husband-shattered like glass under a stiletto heel. Heartbroken and blindsided, she does the only thing that makes sense: packs her bags and heads south to the small North Carolina town she swore she'd never return to. It's just temporary, she tells herself-a quiet place to lick her wounds and plan her next move. But South Grove hasn't forgotten her. The porch swings, the sleepy afternoons, the scent of honeysuckle on the breeze-it all comes rushing back. She reconnects with old friends, finds solace in morning coffee runs and barefoot walks along the beach where she once dreamed of escaping. And then there's Greyson McKinnie. The boy who broke her heart is now a man who carries his own scars. Their reunion is anything but smooth. Tense, electric, and full of history, their connection flares to life the moment they cross paths again. And this time, walking away might not be so easy. Now, torn between the career she built and the love she thought she'd lost, Delaney must choose: is the life she always wanted worth the price of the one her heart is just beginning to remember?

A Good Girl's Guide To Being Naughty • • • Ivy Collins is a normal 21 y/o woman. Except for the fact she's a virgin ... or at least she was until she had sex with her university rivals hockey captain. After a quick (devastatingly quick) night with the man and being called a lousy lay, Ivy made a promise to herself that she wouldn't do it again ... sex that is. Who needs sex when all it brought was insecurities and more, and it wasn't even that good to begin with. Enter Asher Hudson, Ice Hockey captain, her brothers best friend and her best friends brother - triple trifecta of why she shouldn't get involved with him. But when he overhears a conversation Ivy has with her best friend, he gives her an offer she can't refuse. Well, she can, and she should, but why would she want to? Three months, she helps him with his grades, and he'll help her with her sex life. Only one rule, don't fall in love. Easy, right? He'll teach her everything she wants to know, and show her that sex can be fun, you just have to know how to do it right. And Ivy should refuse, after all he's the Ice Hockey captain, her brother's best friend and her best friend's brother - but what's the fun in that. Ivy knows she should say no, but she won't. And she won't fall in love, she can't. ••• Completed • First Draft - Edited. Watty2025 winner #1 in #Romance #1 in #Brotherbestfriend #2 in #bestfriendsbrother #2 in #icehockey

[18+] Ellis Sutton, the sweet and caring Instagram influencer, has never felt the need to be romantically involved with a man despite her online fame. Everything seems fine until a two-week fling one summer when a handsome cowboy shakes things up. Thoughts of him won't leave her mind, and the growing pressure from her massive Instagram following is starting to take a toll on her. Rhett Lawson, a true cowboy and part owner of the rugged Diamond Creek Ranch, a cattle ranch and lodging haven, is facing financial woes. In a desperate bid to rescue their family legacy, Rhett's sister hatches a plan - bring in the famed Instagram sensation, Ellis Sutton. The hope? That her massive following could breathe new life into the struggling ranch. However, the plan takes an unexpected twist when Rhett realizes that the same Instagram sensation his sister has invited is none other than Ellie - the two-week fling etched in his memory for over a year. He had no idea that the sweet and sexy woman he met at that bar that summer was actually a global phenomenon: social media influencer Ellis Sutton.

Nineteen-year-old Marin Larkin has been working as a personal assistant for her famous sister Liv for the past year. Even though Marin and Liv are close, Marin has always felt like she doesn't belong in her sister's world - that she isn't good enough. When Marin's family moved to Los Angeles four years earlier, Marin naively fell in love with Connor O'Quinn, a boy who worked with Liv on both of their first movies. But soon after, Connor became a Hollywood heartthrob, and Marin's love turned to hate. Liv and Connor are now working together again for the first time in four years on a movie in Toronto, and Marin can't help but feel like she is right back to her fifteen-year-old self after years of pushing him away. The story weaves back through the years of their distant friendship and reveals what Connor must overcome to show Marin he is no longer the seventeen-year-old boy he once was. But Marin has never realized that her point of view isn't the whole truth, and she has never even considered Connor's.

Four brothers. One small town. And a past that just won't let her go. • • • Benny Lane didn't come to Cedar Creek to make friends. She came to disappear. After years trapped in the shadow of an abusive marriage, all she wants is quiet, safety, and a chance to remember who she is without someone telling her who to be. But small towns don't let strangers slip by unnoticed. Especially not when four protective brothers seem to be everywhere she turns. Beckett, with his quiet watchfulness. Sawyer and Dawson, with their easy banter that chips away at her walls. And Wells, the sheriff, whose steady stare makes her pulse race for all the wrong reasons. They see more than she wants them to. They see her fear. Her secrets. And maybe-just maybe-the woman she's fighting to be again. Benny came to Cedar Creek to hide. But what if she's found something worth healing for? ••• **completed** a small town slow burn why choose cowboy romance ••• #1 in #WhyChoose #2 in #smalltown #3 in #cowboy/s #3 in #reverseharem

Lina and her husband Mark are stunned when she gives birth months early while visiting her parents, and she's forced to stay behind with her fragile newborn while he returns home to work. It appears that they've made the best of a terrible situation, but when she and the baby can finally return home, everything feels wrong. Her job has shifted out from under her, parenting turns her marriage inside out, and her gifted parrot has learned some mimics that she can't make heads of tails of. As Lina struggles to navigate the complexities of being a mother outside the NICU, she begins to suspect that while she was absent someone stepped into the space that was supposed to be hers alone. She tackles the mystery one step at a time while trying to focus on her baby's changing needs with the help of a calm and helpful mentor the hospital assigned to them. One by one, the things people tell her and her parrot's insistent voice fill her life with doubt, until the only voice that still feels real is hundreds of miles away.