evacharya
🌟 Spin-off to '𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞' - a 2020 Wattys Winning Romance with over 1+ Million reads 🌟
Jyoti 'Jo' Gilligan made an unbreakable vow once: she is one woman who will never fall in love, especially not with a man. No thank you. Not if they can up and leave just like her father, shattering her world in one single, selfish move like her Ma's life. But that doesn't mean she doesn't like fun, or for that matter, sex. She's happy to go on as many dates as she wants, and ditch the dude the moment he starts showing signs of clinging.
Yet, she never expected a (terrifying) mugging-gone-wrong could land her across the desk of a sergeant who seems just her type--hot, sexy, with a voice that can melt the damn clothes off her body, especially if he says her name; and an oh-so-familiar face she can't place for some reason. Why couldn't the universe give her another case officer, or better yet, a woman officer?
But when her doting, meddling mother starts blindsiding her with surprise dates in the lead up to her oh-so-annoying twin's wedding, all Jo can think about is, she needs a man to get her mother off her back and dispel future suitors. It's time she committed. Temporarily. And who better than the one man who won't leave her alone with his 'wellness' check-ins: Sergeant Jonathan 'Toma' Whitlock. Even his name rings a distant bell (why?)
Yet, he might be the perfect deterrent for Ma's poor matchmaking skills and men who dare imagine she'd ever go out with them let alone give them her life in exchange for a pinch of sindoor. It's a solid plan.
Except, the more she starts pulling Toma into her world as her fake man, the harder it is to ignore the actual guy behind the smiles and the charm, trying to steal her heart from right under her nose. How dare he?
{Note: This spinoff world imagines Jo's love story, but it's been a while since I wrote 'for June' so there may be some discrepancies between her character and/or family between the two works.}