He sees the cracks she hides. She hears the silence he jokes over. Neither expects to become the other's safest place.
Olivia Hudson has perfected the mask, golden girl, party queen, untouchable. Declan Knight hides behind jokes and a smile loud enough to drown out everything that hurts. When a single crack in Liv's façade collides with the fractures Declan can't outrun, they see each other, too clearly, too fast.
Dragged together by pull and pushed apart by pride, they flirt, fight, and burn through a campus that keeps score. But want is easy. Trust is work. And neither of them knows what it means to let someone stay when the lights are off and the past gets loud.
Family loyalty, private scars, and a love that refuses to be tidy, this is a story about choosing to be seen and learning that "broken" isn't the end of you. It's where the light starts.
For fans of angsty romance with real stakes, protective siblings, and healing arcs that earn their happy ending -
golden girl × class clown, grumpy/guarded × charming, hurt/comfort, slow burn found family, brothers who will burn the world for you
Leila always believed that she was cursed to be born as one of the Lambordi. Her brothers were scary and they hated her. Thus, she always tried to stay out of their way in fear they would hurt her.
Two years!
For two years she managed to escape from them but all in vain, she was again dragged back to the hell, her home.
But this time something is beginning to change and Leila suspects that this is bound to hurt her even more.