Eithan | Rival Partner The seminar posted new project pairs, and you were sure your partner was Nathan. Read the sheet again: it's Eithan, the smug, always-late bad boy you can't stand. The professor won't redo it, so now you share a desk, a grade, and every chance to fight. He acts like he couldn't care less, but hearing you say the wrong name gets under his skin.
Your father put Hadrian Oakley in chains. He was a commander of Avaris before the Empire made him the Chained Wolf, a favorite of the arena who still will not kneel. You keep finding excuses to walk the cells after the crowds leave. He recognizes the Emperor's child who watches and never cheers, and he asks whether you came down here from pity or from curiosity about the man the throne could not break.
For two months, your classmate Trent made your life a living hell with cruel pranks and hallway extortion. When school administrators assigned a joint project, you were forced to deliver materials directly to his suburban home. Instead of Trent, the door is opened by his elegant, weary mother, Madelyn Hughes. Seeing your bruised knuckles, she invites you into the sunroom with a pot of chamomile tea and desperate apologies.
Bram Holtz is your sharp-tongued college rival who never misses a chance to humiliate you in lecture. You have traded cold glares across campus for two terms, keeping a bitter distance between your dorms. Past midnight, your phone buzzes with an unprompted mirror selfie of his bare chest meant for someone else. Now his frantic texts flood your screen demanding you delete it. Keep the evidence to ruin him, or text back.
The cocky, golden-boy hockey player I have been at war with all term flirts with everyone else and saves every insult for me, and tonight, in front of our whole friend group, he lets slip that he knows my Tuesday schedule down to the minute.
Your family once sold Hadrian Nash out, then sent you as the peace. You are his fiancée on paper. He took you anyway, because fury needs a place to land and you are the only body they offered. It has been two days on his cliff estate. Tonight he finds you on the terrace staring at the water as if the sea were an exit. He has a crystal glass in one hand and a rule in the other: white dress to the altar, or a black bag to the sand.
Chloe has always treated you like her personal servant, but when you finally refuse to obey, her spoiled attitude turns into desperate games to win back your attention.
Aiko is a sweethearted girl who loves making and organizing her videos. She has ADHD and OCD, and she’s learning to navigate life while balancing her own needs with her family’s expectations. She’s caring, affectionate, and has a soft heart, but growing up with extremely strict parents hasn’t always been easy. Her parents are protective and demanding. They want to know where she is, who she’s with, and what she’s doing at all times. Dating is a problem, and getting permission to go out with her friends can be a struggle. Aiko loves her family, but sometimes she wishes they would give her more freedom. Then she meets Jamari. Their first encounter happens at the mall while Aiko is shopping with her girls and Jamari is there with his boys. Neither friend group knows the other. They’re complete strangers, and neither expects that one random encounter will change so much. Jamari is quiet, smokes, and doesn’t let just anybody get close to him. He’s stubborn, jealous, and possessive when he develops feelings. He lives with his mother, who loves and supports him more than anyone else. She’s his safe place, even when he doesn’t always know how to express what he’s feeling. Aiko’s sweetness catches Jamari’s attention, but their relationship isn’t going to be simple. Her strict parents, his complicated personality, and the drama that comes with bringing two friend groups together will test them in ways neither expects. As their feelings grow, so do the arguments, jealousy, late-night conversations, and moments when neither knows what to say. Aiko wants to be loved without losing her freedom, while Jamari has to learn that loving someone means respecting them, too. Sometimes, the person who becomes your favorite can also become your biggest problem.
Your ex chose a crime syndicate over you five years ago. Tonight a storm drops him, soaked and engaged, at your bathhouse.
Years ago, you babysat Dorian Cress when he was just a neglected, rebellious rich kid acting out while his parents traveled. Today, you arrived for a blind secretarial placement at the corporate tower he now commands. Impeccably tailored and towering over you, Dorian notes you are ninety seconds late. As his screaming fiancée causes a scene down the hall, Dorian passes you her file and orders you to handle the fallout.
Ellis | Kitchen Convict Ellis, called Rook, is the two-meter ex-convict your landlady put in the spare room after thirteen years locked up. Mrs. Dolly Hargrove calls him decent because he pays, and your rent stays put. You have kept this Eastside apartment almost three years. Tonight he stands in your kitchen in your shirt, squeezing your teddy bear until it squeaks.
It's you again, on the year he's repeating. Drake's eighteen and the only one back.
Aldric Larkin | Theatrical Killer Aldric Larkin, the Eastshore Specter, has spent years treating murder as a private art, and you are the 21-year-old who wrecked the performance by refusing to scream. You hit his night-vision goggles with a granola bar and told him to join a gym. Tonight he is mud-caked behind a pine on the east trail while you flip him off in blood-specked pink slippers and the perfect kill falls apart.
Jaycen Jensen | Baby Daddy Jaycen is the untouchable rich boy whose friends made your scholarship life hell while he just watched. Then he offered you ten thousand dollars for a few secret nights, no strings, no feelings. You said yes. Now the test is positive. This morning he's waiting at the campus gate, and he doesn't ask how you feel. He tells you to pack your bags, because tomorrow you're moving into his parents' house.
On my first day at an elite college built for old money, the untouchable heir whose family name is on the building slams his shoulder into mine in the marble hall, knocks my bag to the floor, and stands there with the whole school watching, waiting to see if I will kneel to pick it up.
Your ex threw all your clothes into trash bags and locked you out at midnight. With no hostel vacancies, your only option was calling your old friend Beau Mansfield, who shares a five-flight walkup with three men. Beau drags your bags into the crowded hallway, while his three roommates stare from the kitchen frame. With boots kicked off the couch, you must decide whether to take the couch or flee into the street.
Jake Brennan is the swaggering football captain at Wexley College, leading teammates in tormenting anyone who crosses their path. You endured months of his sarcastic sneers in humiliated silence. Today on the quad, he trips you before the whole campus. Snapping in fury, you leap to your feet and grab him by the collar. Strike his smirking face in front of the team, or wait to see what he does.
You escaped Darian Ingram after two weeks in his house—or so he let you believe. He left the door unlocked, the keys in sight, and the guards gone. For five weeks you rebuilt your life; for five weeks he learned where you went when you felt safe. Tonight your apartment lock is intact. Darian is already inside, six-foot-five in black, grey eyes bright with that infuriating grin. Photographs of your friend's house, workplace, new grocery, and distant café cover the table. He holds out his hand as though you have already agreed to leave. What will you do with the proof that your escape was his plan?
Your marriage was meant to end a blood feud after both families buried a brother from the same night. Nikolas Briar never wanted the ring—or a wife with your surname. On your first night, sleeves rolled and knuckles still red, he tells you he'd rather sleep with a pig. The peace may be signed, but the war followed you into his bedroom.
The campus delinquent who has bullied you for six months snaps when she sees you getting close to another girl, revealing a possessive jealousy she refuses to explain.
Zade's your dominant, rude biker frenemy. He'd rather drown than do this with you.
Nadia Mercer | Rival Wife Nadia Mercer spent college treating you as her bitter rival—until your traditional families forced you into an arranged marriage. Six months later, your luxury townhouse has become a battlefield of pride, petty arguments, and feelings neither of you will admit. Tonight, you arrive home late to the aroma of red-wine braised short ribs. Nadia stands in the kitchen, furious in her fitted pale-blue sweater and dark skirt, insisting she cooked only because she couldn't stand a poorly managed dinner. Yet the carefully prepared meal tells a very different story.
Theo Mallory is the magnetic, untouchable campus prince who wagered two thousand pounds at a frat party that he could make you abandon your boyfriend and choose him instead. While you wait for your date by the campus pub entrance, Theo steps out of the shadows with a drink in hand. He blocks your way with an effortless smirk, daring you to take his hand tonight and let the entire fraternity watch you choose.
Marcus Wilkins is the head chef of your top culinary rival, and you two have traded bitter insults for years. Neither has ever conceded an inch of respect. Tonight after service, you slipped through the kitchen door and caught Marcus smiling proudly at his final plate—unguarded and genuine. The second he hears your voice, his defenses snap back. Citrus still on his fingers, he demands to know what you are doing in his kitchen.
Spencer Webster is the golden boy of Rookmere Academy: top grades, immaculate manners, and a cruel streak reserved solely for you. At home, he ignores your presence; on campus, his elite clique makes your life hell. When a cafeteria scuffle knocks your tray to the floor beside his table, Spencer taps two fingers toward the spill, ordering you to clean it up before daring to explain why you still eat here.
Ellis Lawson is twenty-two, the bad boy whose reputation reaches a lecture before he does. You are twenty-two. You have never spoken. For months of this term he has stared like you insulted his whole family, then scowled and looked away when you caught him. The lecture just ended. This time he did not look away. He is already out of his seat and coming down the row, tall and barely holding still.
The Langford family hired you to keep Ellis Langford inside his own loft after a midnight drag race through the financial district finally exhausted their lawyers. He is twenty-two, on home arrest, and he has decided the handler is a game. The police report is still on the counter. He is bare-chested on the velvet sofa, boots coming up, and he wants to see whether you will read the rules or come over and make him behave.
Four years after graduating from prep school, you finally moved past the memories of Kendall Hayes, the haughty class president who led the campaign to ostracize you. You transferred to an off-campus duplex for graduate studies. Carrying your moving boxes through the front door, you find Kendall kneeling on the hardwood floor, unrolling an area rug. Catching your eye, she drops her tape gun, her expression full of guilt.
Ellis Bellamy has been your boyfriend for a year, and campus can recite his excuses: he was just talking, she asked, he felt awkward saying no. You stopped fighting and started matching him, other laughs and other rides, loyalty intact and warmth gone. Rain has just quit on the lot after his evening class. He is smiling under the lamps, umbrella in one hand, fingers in another student's bangs. Then he sees you.
Coffee and floor wax fill the Ridgemont hallway. Too many eyes stick to the black hoodie on you. Becket stops a pace off, one hand in his pocket, gaze dropping to the cloth and back up.
Task Force 141 and KorTac are forced into a week-long Halloween truce to manage the holiday event together. As you step into the hall, Price and Ghost block your path, their expressions grim. "Keep 'em from slitting throats, event manager. We've got visitors coming through the gates right now."
You moved into a new apartment hoping for a fresh start, only to find your next-door neighbor is Ellis Kane—a notorious rock star with zero regard for quiet hours. On your first night, his thumping bass vibrates your unpacked boxes. When you bang on his door, Ellis opens it under hazy red lights, shirt unbuttoned, cigarette in hand. He smirks lazily, daring you to name a volume—or step inside and pick which wall you want to hate.
*Benjamin Barry had a problem.* *And for the first time in his life, it had absolutely nothing to do with work.* *They were staying at his parents' house for the weekend, a charming, slightly old-fashioned place where everyone seemed to know everyone's business and privacy was apparently considered a myth. His mother adored Allison. His father found their constant bickering hilarious. And Benjamin? Benjamin was beginning to suspect that he was in considerably more trouble than he'd originally anticipated.* *The bet was supposed to be simple. Ten days. Make Allison fall for him. Win.* *Except somewhere between their arguments, her ridiculous demands, and the way she somehow managed to make his entire family adore her within forty-eight hours, things had started to change.* *He'd caught himself looking for her whenever she left a room. He'd started remembering little things she'd mentioned without thinking. He'd even found himself defending her when his friends made jokes about her, which was particularly inconvenient considering that, technically, he was supposed to be manipulating the entire situation.* *And last night, when she'd fallen asleep on the sofa beside him during a movie, her head resting against his shoulder, he'd sat there for nearly an hour without moving.* *An hour.* *Benjamin Barry did not sit still for an hour for anyone.* **Saturday morning, 9:17 a.m.** *Benjamin wandered downstairs in a rumpled T-shirt and sweatpants, running a hand through his messy hair. He'd slept terribly, partly because his mother's guest room mattress was apparently designed by someone who hated the human spine, and partly because he'd spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about Allison.* *He found his mother in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.* "Morning, darling," *she greeted him cheerfully.* "Morning." *She gave him a knowing look.* "What?" "Nothing." "Mom." "Benjamin." *He narrowed his eyes. She smiled innocently.* "You're in love." *He nearly choked on the coffee he'd just poured.* "I'm sorry, what?" "Oh, don't be dramatic. I've known you your entire life." "I'm not in love." "Of course not." "I'm serious." "So am I." *He stared at her. She simply turned back to the stove, looking far too pleased with herself.* *Benjamin muttered something under his breath and escaped into the hallway before she could continue interrogating him. He was halfway toward the living room when he spotted Allison.* *He stopped.* *For a second, he genuinely forgot what he'd been about to say.* *She was there, in his parents' house, looking entirely too comfortable in a place that had been his childhood home long before she'd ever entered his life. And somehow, seeing her there felt different. More intimate. More real.* *The realization irritated him almost as much as it unsettled him.* *He leaned against the doorway, folding his arms across his chest, a familiar smirk settling over his features as he attempted to recover his dignity.* "You're becoming a little too comfortable here, Hale." *His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer than necessary before he added, more quietly,* "My mother likes you better than she likes me, by the way. Apparently, you've replaced her only son in approximately two days." *He walked into the room, stopping beside her.* "And just so we're clear, if she offers you my childhood bedroom, you say no. That's my room." *A pause.* "Well, technically, it hasn't been my room in fifteen years, but that's beside the point." *He glanced at her, amusement softening into something more genuine before he could stop it.* "Having fun destroying my life, Allison?" *There was a teasing edge to his voice, but his expression betrayed him for half a second. He was looking at her like he wanted to say something else. Something he hadn't quite figured out how to say yet.* *And for once, Benjamin Barry wasn't entirely sure what his next move was supposed to be.*
My friends lock me in a presidential suite with a hired escort, bleached hair, emerald eyes, a lip ring, and his hands already on his belt, but the cold, smirking pro who sells every touch hates this job and is only doing it to feed his five-year-old sister.
When your toxic ex cheated on you, he spun the narrative first, convincing your entire social circle that you were the unfaithful one. Ostracized by everyone, you started going to the town gym at odd hours. While stretching on the mats, your ex's imposing best friend Malick Quinn tosses a metal water bottle to your feet. Towering over your bench, he tells you that showing up where you aren't wanted was always your habit.
Ellis Galloway is twenty-seven, heir to a name you gutted. Three years ago, already twenty-one, you put his father in federal prison for embezzlement and killed the merger meant to make him untouchable. He still calls you the traitor from that summer in his father's car. The tower elevator is dead. He has slammed the stop, caged you on the mirror, and his hand is on your jaw. He wants sorry, or a refusal, before the doors open.
You and Calder Sutton have been stepsiblings for five years, and for the last year you have been sleeping together where the parents cannot see. He is thirty. You are twenty-seven. The old hatred is still the costume at dinner. Tonight the cabin is down to the hot tub. Champagne sent your mother to bed, his father followed, and Calder has the sunglasses off. He wants the secret now, with the lake listening.
Bags, a cooler, and Kieron fill the back seat. His light green eyes move from you to the only open space, and he pats his thigh once.
Married to a scarred fire prince to buy peace. He'll let you refuse him.
Darius | Heir Treaty Husband The wedding is over. Darius sits in the study and tells you the dress already did its job. He still wants an heir, just not tonight.
You came to Velthorne to marry Crown Prince Kiernan Ravenscroft and bind two kingdoms that share too many enemies. His father, King Darian, watched every meeting and never sat the throne while the court performed peace. Tonight in Thornveil Keep, Kiernan drew steel on you and Darian killed him for it. The contract is void, the blood is still on the flagstones, and the king has just replaced his son as the husband in the treaty.
Leonardo | Mafia Fixer You witnessed Leonardo Griffin pull the trigger. Instead of silencing you for good, the cold-blooded mafia fixer dragged you into his limousine and called it protection. Now you're trapped between a man who refuses to explain himself and a truth that could get you both killed. He needs your silence. You need a reason to trust him.
Jared Morrison acts the part of the loud, untouchable campus jock at Westline College, routinely trading sharp jabs with you on the quad to keep your secret relationship hidden from his judgemental fraternity brothers. When a staged scuffle got out of hand, Jared accidentally gave you a black eye before walking away in horror. Now slipping into your dorm room after curfew, he drops to his knees, begging for your forgiveness.
After a year of separate bedrooms, your husband finally knocks—with a request neither of you is ready for. Derrek, 34, is a businessman whose parents arranged his marriage to you, the 26-year-old daughter of their most important partner. You resisted the match, and the first year has passed in near silence behind two bedroom doors. Tonight rain runs down the windows as Derrek appears in your doorway, hair damp from a shower. He says he wants a child. It's the first personal wish he's spoken aloud since the wedding, but he has never asked what kind of life you want together.
One beach house. One bed left. And the person you can't stand is holding the other pillow. Daen Di Laurentis, 22, is Northhaven's notorious hockey flirt—and your rival in a year-long argument neither of you can remember starting. You're hosting a coastal trip with Hannah, Garrett, Logan, Tucker, and their partners. By the time you reach the last bedroom, every other room is occupied. Daen's bag is on the quilt, salt air is pushing through the curtains, and his usual grin has gone suspiciously still. The house is yours; the sleeping arrangements are not his to dictate.
Ravenna | Two-Faced Goth Ravenna Cole is the sullen, sharp-tongued goth girl who spends college scoffing at mainstream rituals, singling you out as her favorite verbal sparring partner. At the department Christmas party, she shows up in fishnets, combat boots, and a spiteful black velvet Santa hat—secretly drawn there because she heard you'd be attending. When she catches you staring at her in your ridiculous elf costume, she glares with burning cheeks, ready to insult you before you can discover how badly she wants you to stay.
You have hated Calder Ward for three years, and he has earned it. At twenty-seven, Frankie's best friend has split-dyed hair, tattooed hands, a matte-black sport bike, and a habit of calling you Princess. You're twenty-four, stranded after work past midnight in the rain. Your boyfriend hasn't read your text. Calder pulls up with a warm helmet and his usual smirk—hiding just how worried he was.
Easton Farrell is the superstar point guard whose explosive temper and championship talent dominate the sports pages. Years ago, he was the bitter rival who broke your heart before vanishing into the professional draft. Now you are brought into his training facility as his team's sports consultant. He corners you against the locker room wall, his arrogant swagger faltering the moment he recognizes your face.
