He needs a place to live, she needs a baby daddy. Pietro Santangelo and Marguerite White are students at prestigious Columbia University in New York City. She is a fun-loving, free spirit who finds herself in a bit of a familial bind, he is an exchange student with a chronic case of poverty. They concoct a plan that they think will work, not realizing how much changes with two simple words... Pete merely looked at her and opened a box of books. He took some out and began placing them on the shelves, bending and stretching at his task. He had a nice back, broad shoulders and muscles that could be seen clearly under his light blue T-shirt. Daisy watched for a minute, fascinated. "Like what you see?" he asked without turning around. She jumped at the sound of his voice. "Well, you're the only thing in the room that's moving, you know?" she said by way of explanation. He turned around to look at her, books in either hand, a small grin on his face. "Of course, what was I thinking?" he asked rhetorically. "And look. We're both adults here, hm?" He looked carefully at her. "The couch we just brought up here cost fifty dollars at the second-hand store, and has to be at least thirty years old. I don't want to sleep on it, and I don't think you're going to want to sleep on it, either." She shook her head. "So the bed is nice and big," he continued. "I think we can manage, don't you? We can share the bed." He watched her for her reaction. "I give you my word this is not going to be a problem for me. At all. Is this going to be a problem for you?" She looked at him. "Really? At all?" She recovered from the unintentional meaning of his words quickly. "No, it won't be a problem for me, either," she said firmly. "We can share the bed." Content warning: This story contains mature sexual content, and themes of premarital sex and sexual assault.

In a small Indiana town, a teenage girl hasn't been seen for months, and her brother Reed is sketchy on the details. But seventeen-year-old Mayuri Krishnan doesn't know any of this-not yet. For her, Reed is the boy of her daydreams, the name she scribbles in her notebook, and the starring role of her online cliche mafia romance. When he stumbles upon her secrets, she first thinks Reed's claims to be from an Albanian crime family are lies intended to trick her. Soon, Mayuri begins to question the thin line between fiction and reality. Threats are made, daggers are drawn, and near-misses come too close for comfort. With Reed's promise to keep her safe from those who want her dead, and her growing belief that he may be lying about it all, Mayuri chooses to keep the dangerous part of her life a secret from her cop father. Things come to a head when she teams up with Reed's ex-girlfriend and best friend to uncover his secrets, leading to a night when a knife and a gun determine all their futures. She didn't mean to run away from a murder. She didn't have a choice. Abducted by someone she trusted, Mayuri must use all her wiles to save herself. The true lies that drew Reed and Mayuri together-and the false truths they discover along the way-could drive them apart forever.