I need a husband. Jensen needs a business makeover. A marriage of convenience should solve both our problems. Moving back to Coal Haven should have been simple—start my tutoring business, settle into the historic house my grandmother left me, and move on from my past. But there’s a I can’t claim the house unless I’m married. Jensen Hollis. My childhood rival. The guy I spent years trying to outdo. The one who married our mutual friend while I watched from the sidelines. Now he’s divorced, a single dad, and—somehow—my only option. It’s a perfect arrangement. A temporary marriage. One year with no feelings involved. At least, that was the plan… until playing house starts to feel a little too real.

I went to Vegas to get married and ended up saying “I do” to my fiancé’s brother. My dream wedding in Las Vegas turns into a scandalous nightmare when my fiancé gets married—to another woman. Pregnant, unemployed, and dangerously close to losing a house that was supposed to kickstart my next phase of life, I’m out of options. Until Sullivan, my ex-groom’s black-sheep brother, makes an offer that changes marry him instead. I get to keep the house, he gets to work on his start-up in peace, and we just have to cohabitate for a year. I don’t expect playing house to feel so natural. Or to see Sullivan for who he truly is without baseless comparisons to his brother. I definitely don’t expect to wish I could see what he’s like as a dad beyond our year together. Then there was that one time in the laundry room with him…and in the bathroom…and on the kitchen table. I could go for much more of that. As the calendar pages turn, I’ve been wishing this was the beginning and not the end. But I was let down in the most humiliating way possible. I can’t waste my clover dreams on a man who could devastate my heart worse than before.