First draft • completed • Cliche She was supposed to leave him behind. Instead, he followed her home-with a grin and a proposition she can't refuse. • • • Leon and Charlottes story (can be read as a standalone but is part of a series - read sinful liabilities first if you want to) • • • Leon Collins has an uncanny resemblance to temptation - and Charlotte Hudson knows better than to touch it twice. As maid of honour to her best friend and sister-in-law-to-be, Charlotte's only job is to keep the wedding week flawless. But that's easier said than done when the best man is Leon: her brother's best friend, her best friend's brother, and the one mistake she swore she'd never make again. They danced too close once - too drunk, too messy, too young, and far too unforgettable. Now they're walking down the aisle together, tension simmering under every glance, every brush of skin, every drunken confession that never should've left her lips. When the week ends, Charlotte thinks she's leaving the past - and him behind for good. She's wrong. Because Leon Collins just got traded to her new team. Now he's in her office, in her space, and in her head - all charm, smirks, and a proposition that shouldn't sound as tempting as it does. One rule. No feelings. Just a physical arrangement to burn off the heat neither of them can seem to ignore. But desire this dangerous doesn't play by the rules. And the closer Charlotte gets to Leon, the more her carefully built walls begin to crack. She promised herself she'd never fall for him again. But Leon Collins has always been the one risk she can't resist.

When Isola washes ashore in a forgotten fishing town, half-dead and desperate to disappear, she swears she'll never let anyone discover what she truly is-a mermaid born of salt and secrets. But the ocean isn't the only thing that calls to her. Three brothers find her tangled in their nets: Lachlan, the stoic oldest who carries storms in his silence. Finn, the healer with eyes like tidepools and a heart too soft for the sea. And Ronan, all fire and suspicion, whose touch feels like both a warning and home. They offer her refuge. She offers them lies. Because somewhere out there, the man who destroyed her family still hunts her-the man she once loved, whose brother she killed to survive. Now, in a town where the ocean never sleeps and secrets rise like waves, Isola must choose: Keep hiding beneath the tide... or let herself be caught between them?

Drayven knew what he was doing was wrong. Stupidly wrong. Yet no matter how many times he reminded himself of that truth, he could never bring himself to stop. Every time he touched her, his mind betrayed him, cruelly painting the image of Veloria in her place. Every time he looked at her, it was Veloria's face he saw the woman he had once loved with everything he had and the same woman who had left behind a hollow ache that refused to fade. She was never meant to be anything more than a temporary escape. Someone he could use to numb the pain, someone who could silence the loneliness that followed him like a shadow after Veloria disappeared from his life. That was what he told himself from the beginning. She was supposed to be nothing more than a distraction, a way to survive the nights that felt too quiet and the memories that refused to let him breathe. But somewhere along the way, things changed. He began to depend on her presence. The warmth of her company slowly seeped into the cracks Veloria had left behind, easing the suffocating emptiness in his chest. The loneliness that once haunted him every night seemed quieter whenever she was around, and before he knew it, her presence had become something he had grown used to. Something he needed. He tried to push her away, convincing himself that distance would fix everything before it spiraled into something far worse. He tried to treat her coldly, hoping that the indifference would drive her away and end the dangerous attachment between them. But he had been wrong. Because instead of leaving, she stayed. And instead of forgetting her, he found himself sinking deeper into the comfort she unknowingly gave him. Now the thought of her disappearing from his life felt far more terrifying than the guilt that constantly longer live without.