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

My head is pounding like someone's taken a jackhammer to my skull. I crack one eye open and immediately regret it when sunlight stabs through my retinas. The events of last night swim hazily through my consciousness—the rain, the fight with Kian, that terrible bargain with Liam.


And before that... Kian and I in the alley.


Heat crawls up my neck despite my hangover. The memory shouldn't make me feel this way, not after everything that happened afterward.


I roll over with a groan, burying my face in the pillow. My dreams had been vivid and disturbing—Kian's hands on my body, his voice in my ear whispering promises that made me squirm. In the harsh light of morning, I'm horrified by how much I wanted those dreams to continue.


My phone buzzes on the nightstand, the sound like a chainsaw against my tender eardrums. I fumble for it, knocking over a glass of water in the process.


Hangovers, Matchmakers, and Mistaken Identity