Love Me, Not

Ayanna Nimb has spent her life doing what's expected.
She shows up.
She holds things together.
She doesn't ask for more.
Between caring for her ill mother, carrying unspoken grief, and navigating a childhood friend who mistakes proximity for ownership, Ayanna has learned how to stay small how to disappear inside responsibility.
Then Reese finds her.
There's nothing accidental about him. The way he watches. The way he waits. The way he sees through the parts of her she never offers out loud. His presence is calm, controlled... and unsettling in how quickly it becomes familiar.
Around her, tension builds.
A man who knows her history too well.
A charming distraction that complicates everything.
A past connection that threatens to resurface.
As attraction deepens and boundaries blur, Ayanna is forced to confront the difference between being protected and being possessed and whether she's brave enough to choose the chaos that feels honest over the safety that never quite was.
Some love stories aren't gentle.
They're inevitable