She was supposed to leave him behind. Instead, he followed her home - with a grin and a proposition she can't seem to refuse. • • • 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 - but there's always consequences to dancing with temptation and Charlotte has paid the price. One she promises herself she won't ever revisit. But 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 - her young and stupid mistakes - 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?

In a world filled with silence and memories that refuse to rest, a man continues to live in the shadow of a past he can never truly escape. Every memory he tried to bury eventually finds its way back. The moments he wished to forget return without warning, haunting the quiet corners of his mind and following him into the life he desperately tried to rebuild. No matter how far he runs, the past always seems to find him. Behind his cold expression lies a wound that has remained open for far too long. Years of pain have shaped the person he has become. Trauma taught him to build walls, to hide his emotions, and to keep everyone at a safe distance. What once made him feel alive slowly became something he learned to fear. He stopped believing that happiness could last. He stopped believing that people could stay. Most importantly, he stopped believing that love could exist without taking something from him. To him, love was never gentle. It was never something he could simply accept without hesitation. Love came with pain, loss, betrayal, and consequences he could never control. So he chose distance. He chose silence. He chose to become someone who could no longer be easily hurt.