She hears all the locker room talk. She helps when the guys drink too much before a game. She tapes them up when they're injured. And in return, they watch her back. While most students spend their time partying, Lily spends her free time working. But her job as the assistant athletic trainer for the PSU football team comes with the benefit of being friends with every player on the team. Except the entirely too cocky, reckless, and charming golden boy of the team: Vincent Bradshaw. When they aren't spouting insults at one another, Vincent and Lily are doing everything in their power to avoid each other. That is, until Vincent gets injured.

Soren Maxwell is to take over his father's business, Maxwell Inc, when he goes into retirement, but there's one issue. Soren is a playboy, with new women on his arm every week. He's not a man for relationships, and the bad reputation that his constant rotation of women will bring to the business isn't something his father will accept. The solution? Marriage, of course. In comes Ayla, forced into an arranged marriage with Soren as part of a deal to merge Maxwell Inc with her father's business. Her and Soren have never met before, but it's tense from the moment they meet, and in more ways than one.

❝You're way more messed up than I thought.❞ In which he had the world, but at what price? [ELIJAH MIKAELSON AU] STARTED: AUGUST 21, 2017 FINISHED: APRIL 19, 2018