Henry Bishop was supposed to stay gone. He moved into my parents’ house when I was seventeen—the brooding British exchange student who slept across the hall from me for ten months. He ate at our table and learned to drive in my dad’s truck. He was my first kiss, my first everything. And he promised he’d come back from England. He didn’t. I spent ten years building a life on the other side of that—an after-school art program for underserved kids. And I was fine—mostly. Then the New York Knights called about a sponsorship that would save my studio, and there’s a six-foot-four British problem attached. Henry is now the NHL’s most penalized enforcer. A bad reputation, a viral hit, and twelve weeks of PR-mandated charity work to clean up his image. He picked my art studio off a list and claims it’s a coincidence. I know better. Twelve weeks. That’s all I have to survive. Except he kisses me in a power outage like the last decade didn’t happen. My family is suddenly thrilled he’s back. And he’s hiding something—something they all seem to know, but nobody’s telling me. I lost him once. I’m not sure I’ll survive losing him twice. I’m even less sure I’ll survive keeping him. Second chance · forced proximity · slow burn · grumpy/grumpy · he-fell-first-and-fell-harder · foreign exchange student · protective hero · secret softness · found family