Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that originated on The Broke and The Bookish. As of January 2018, it moved to That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s topic is Spring TBR.
I built myself up from nothing. A product of the foster care system, I learned early on how to fight hard to get what I want. Whether it was starting my first company in college, earning my first billion, or buying my first professional sports team, I know how to get what I want, when I want it.
Until now.
Willow Monahan is fierce, independent, and hot as hell. She also takes great pleasure in shutting down my advances. The younger sister of one of my star players, Willow intrigues me to my very core. And while she may have willingly given me her body, she is hesitant to offer up more. Now I’m on a mission to find out why.
I’ve decided to approach my desire for Willow like I’ve approached much of my life; with persistence, determination, and a whole lot of that Dominik Carlson alpha charm. Buying a hockey expansion team, building the Arizona Vengeance from the ground up, and bringing home a championship may prove to be an easier feat than winning Willow’s heart.
But I’ve never been a quitter.
Willow Monahan… I’m coming for you.
NICO
She serves me coffee late at night when I come around to write lyrics,
but it’s not the caffeine I’ve gotten addicted to.
We’ve got the spark, but she’s the only woman in town
who seems to be immune to my charms.
When it’s time for me to leave for my cross-country tour,
I just can’t imagine not seeing her for months.
So I offer her a job on the road with me.
KAT
Everyone in LA knows that Nico Todd has a way with songs and with the ladies.
What he doesn’t know is that I would love to let him have his way with me.
But my life can only revolve around one infuriatingly cute guy—
the six-year-old that I live with.
Imagine my surprise when Nico finds out about my little boy
and tells me to bring him and my mom on the road too.
And imagine Nico’s surprise when he realizes my son
is the biggest charmer of them all.
Do people say they hate someone’s guts so that they can still fall stupidly, head-over-heels in love with the other parts?
Asking for a friend.
Okay, fine. I’m not asking for a friend.
I’m asking for me—and I’m begging you to tell me that the practice of falling in love with your should-be-enemy is common.
Please tell me that I’m not the only person to track down a guy—who used to be Hollywood’s baddest bad boy before he left LA for good—at his off-the-grid cabin in Alaska, show up unannounced, and find him gloriously naked.
This probably happens all the time…right?
Tell me I’m not alone in my stupidity—that I’m not the only woman who would fall for gorgeous blue eyes and a sexy devilish smirk, even if they belong to a broody, mysterious jerk.
Please. Please. Please. Tell me I’m not alone in this.
For the love of everything, I need all the supportive girl power I can get if I’m going to convince Luca Weaver to come back to Hollywood—otherwise known as the place he hates so much that he ghosted Oscar-level success and escaped to no-man’s-land for the last eight years just to avoid it.
Yeah, don’t worry—that smoke you’re smelling isn’t your house catching fire as you read this…it’s just my career and what was previously known as my heart going up in flames.
Gah. Is it just me, or am I totally, completely, and utterly screwed?
If you had any ties to Marbella, it was impossible for you not to have heard the stories about Prince Elias and his debauchery.
Every summer he arrived with his security detail and friends in tow and rented out a row of cottages near the water.
Cottages that belonged to my family.
Each of those summers, my parents sent me away – summer camp and later, boarding school. Anything to keep me away from the royals and their partying.
I hadn’t been home in years, but when I finally come back for the summer, I see that not much has changed. Like all the summers I’d been gone, Prince Elias is back, but this time with an incognito security detail and no friends.
This time, there is no partying, no noise, no crowds. No reason at all to even think he was there.
I’m given strict orders not to talk to him, not to even look in his direction, but he makes this an impossible task.
I may be doing everything in my power to stay away from him, but there is no one in the world who can say no to the future King of France.
I’m famous for two things—being one of the best defensemen in the NHL and my classic pranks.
My teammates always said one of my jokes would bite me in my Scottish arse one day, and they were right.
After a prank goes wrong, I’m sentenced to six weeks community service under none other than the sexy, rule-abiding, smart-mouthed city clerk of Sweet Water—Annabelle Clarke.
Lucky for me it’s offseason.
Unlucky for me?
I want Annabelle like I want my next breath.
She’s smart, luscious, and wound-tighter than a Scottish drum.
Och, I’d love to be the one to help loosen her strings.
She’s made it clear that while I’m under her employment, she won’t be under me.
The white-hot chemistry we can’t deny must be ignored at all costs.
But bantering with her is soon my favorite pastime
And she’s the sweetest forbidden fruit I’ve ever tasted
As we grow closer, one thing is absolutely clear
A summer with Annabelle Clarke can only end one of two ways:
Satisfaction or surrender.
And I can only hope we can weather the storm when the sky inevitably crashes down on us.
Have you heard the rumor around campus about the locker room?
If you haven’t, let me enlighten you: Legend has it if you bring a girl into the sacred after-game domain of the baseball locker room, it will end with a walk down the aisle. One rowdy and naked encounter against the lockers with the girl of your dreams will make her your wife.
Translation: baseball players are stupidly superstitious and believe the locker room has magical powers.
But not all baseball players are superstitious, me included.
So when the girl I’ve fallen for brushes me off, I start to question if I need to switch my way of thinking. Maybe it’s time I finally hand out a coveted invitation to the locker room.
The only question is, will she accept?
How do you date your best friend’s sister? Easy.
Step one: Pretend you want her to set you up with someone else. That will bring the two of you closer.
Step two: Go on date with lots of random women, proceed to get stupid drunk and talk about your best friend’s sister, thus gaining the courage to finally make a move.
Step three: Randomly show up at her apartment and confess your love. Women love that, right?
It all seemed so simple. A fool-proof three step process that will guarantee the love of your life to fall madly in love with you.
At least–that’s what I thought was going to happen. But my attempts to win over Julia Westin backfired in more ways than I can count. The thing about Julia? She’s smart–really smart–and her wicked gaze cuts through all the charm I’ve tried slinging her way. She’s not interested in games, my gifts, or my stories. She might want me too; but she’s not giving in that easy…
She’s my employee.
I’m her boss’s boss. Hell, I own the company.
Pursuing Lillian Burkette was a line I shouldn’t cross.
Until a work trip from hell changed everything.
I didnt just step over the line. I annihilated the damn thing.
When it comes to her, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do. Id even kill for her.
When they say the corporate world is a jungle they have no idea.
![The Best Friend Bargain by [Kaswell, Crystal]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41dA8q4ucqL.jpg)
I’m faking a relationship with my best friend. What could possibly go wrong?
Skye is my best friend. I trust her with my life.
So when she asks me to play her boyfriend?
I say hell no. Love screws everything up. And I’m not about to lose the only person who gets me.
But Skye is determined. She’s bringing a fake boyfriend to her cousin’s wedding, with or without me.
No way am I letting some other guy hold her, touch her, kiss her.
It has to be me.
It’s strange, smiling like I’m madly in love.
But it’s easy, wrapping my arms around her curvy body.
It’s easy, dragging my lips over her soft neck.
And when she kisses me?
It’s easy, realizing she’s the only thing I need.
I have five weeks of faking it. Five weeks to convince my best friend our fake love is real.
Zero three zero nine.
Four little numbers … four little words. They might be random and insignificant to anyone else, but they meant something to us.
No, they meant everything to us.
Until they were ripped away.
That was the day our lives took a different course. One we had no control over. One that others puppeteered and mangled into a cluster so big, it left us with emotional scars lined with resentment and venom toward each other.
All because I’m a Montgomery and he’s a Barrett.
Now, Trig’s back and he hates me with more hostility and rage than ever … and I’ve learned to do the same. But when the world comes crashing down and the stakes couldn’t be higher, I can’t run and I can’t hide.
I need the help of the one person whose loathing for me runs deeper than blood and colder than his icy-blue stare.
I need Trig.
I need him more than I know.
