Ava Reed

Aurora Crestwood has been in love with her best friend Liam for ten years. Ten years of being his shoulder to cry on, his late-night phone call, his emotional support through every breakup. Ten years of watching him chase the same toxic woman who keeps breaking his heart.

When Selena Beaumont announces her engagement to someone else, Aurora thinks she's finally free. But Liam has other plans. He wants to crash the wedding, make one last desperate play for the woman who's never truly wanted him. And he wants Aurora to help him do it.

Against her better judgment, she agrees. What she doesn't expect is to meet Kian Vance.

Liam's estranged brother is everything Liam isn't—dangerous, direct, and completely uninterested in playing games. He's also friends with the groom, which makes him the biggest threat to their sabotage plan. But when Kian looks at Aurora, he doesn't see Liam's reliable best friend. He sees a woman who's been hiding her true self for far too long.

"I'm going to steal her from you," Kian tells his brother with cold certainty.

When Kian proposes a wager—if the wedding falls apart, Aurora belongs to him—she should walk away. She should focus on helping Liam win the woman he's obsessed with. She should stick to being the good girl she's always been.

Instead, she shakes hands with the devil himself.

Now Aurora is caught between two brothers, a wedding that might not happen, and a dangerous man who sees right through her carefully constructed walls. Kian promises to show her what it means to be truly wanted, but his interest comes with a price.

As the wedding weekend spirals toward chaos, Aurora must decide: will she keep playing it safe, or will she finally embrace the fire she's been hiding?


Claimed By The Wrong Brother

The ride home is suffocating. Kian drives through the rain-slicked streets in complete silence, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I'm shivering in the passenger seat, my dress still damp despite the heat blasting from the vents.


Neither of us has spoken since leaving the curb.


The windshield wipers create a hypnotic rhythm – swish-swish, swish-swish – matching the chaos in my mind. I steal a glance at Kian's profile, his jaw clenched tight. The streetlights flash across his face, illuminating then shadowing his features in a way that makes him seem almost otherworldly.


I break first. "Why do you hate him so much?"


Kian's eyes remain fixed on the road. "I don't hate Liam."


He sighs, a deep sound that fills the car. "Some things are better left buried, Aurora."


"Not when I'm caught in the middle of them."


The car slows at a red light. Rain drums harder on the roof.


An Unwitting Pawn