Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, the universe decides to tilt your world on its axis. I had a plan, and I was moving forward until the day my world was flipped upside down. It’s a challenge I wasn’t prepared for, but one I had to face. How do you combine the life you thought you had to the one you’re living? One breath. One second. One minute. One hour. One day at a time, you learn to live with your unexpected bond.

It took one night with her to know she was my forever. It took one minute for me to climb out of bed and drive away from her. It’s taken me three years to confess that leaving her behind was the biggest mistake of my life. I won’t stop until she knows what she means to me. I’ll convince her to listen to her heart.

I always thought love was black and white. You meet the girl and within the first meeting you'd know if she's the one. You live happily ever after. My concept was a little off, but it worked for me. I don't waste my time with women I don't see a future with. The day I met Whitney, I didn't get hit with the love bug, nothing spectacular happened, at least not how I expected it to. She's everything. Everything I thought I wanted, and everything I never thought I would. Now that I've found her, it's time to build our future.

I’ve kissed a lot of frogs, just to be covered in warts. I’ve been lied to, cheated on, and used more times than I can count. I don’t have it in me to keep going. I need a break from it all. I need time for the wounds to heal, and the scars to fade. Wouldn’t you know it’s my luck to meet a gorgeous man after declaring my self-imposed break? He’s charming, sexy, and determined to change my mind. 

He's sexy and irresistible. I've done my best to ignore the magnetism that flows between us. I don't need complications in my life. I can't get wrapped up in his world, the last thing I need is to get attached to a professional athlete. I don’t have time for heartbreak.

It’s been years since I’ve been back in this small town of West Virginia for more than a day or two. Spending time here brings back a lot of fond memories. When I stopped by an old friend’s bar, I was expecting to grab a drink and catch up. What I didn’t expect was her. We share an undeniable attraction, but we continue to fight it. Until one night in Vegas changes everything.

Life is a series of events, one leading you to another. The hell I lived through with my drug-addicted parents led me to the Marine Corps. Committing my life to my country was easy. My brothers were my family - all I had and all I needed. I wasn’t looking for her, but I should have known life had other plans. It led me to her.

I'm making strides in the world of dirt late model racing. With back-to-back championships under my belt, I'm determined to win a third and be the youngest driver in history to do so. I'm going to make it happen. My career is my focus. That is until the ultimate distraction in the form of a redheaded bombshell drops into my life.

There comes a point in your life where you have to say enough is enough. I wasted my college years on a guy who played with my head, played with my heart. I was blinded by the fairy tale, the one that didn't exist. The day I gave up on the idea of happily ever after, my focus became me. Moving forward and establishing my career. Until one day.... I didn't expect him. My new boss, a six foot two, inked rock god. I believed I was working for the record label - I was wrong.

Cooper Reeves was the boy-next-door. Every milestone, every memory of my youth was entangled with his. We were inseparable...until college. It wasn't his friends, girls, or even sports that came between us - it was me. Tired of being in the friend zone, I finally made a move. Turns out it was the wrong one. Cooper walked away to play his first year of professional football and left me behind with a broken heart. 

The first time I met Merrick Crawford was during my job interview. Well, technically, I’d met him 20 minutes earlier when he’d barged into a fitting room a few doors down from my appointment. I yelled. He yelled. After an argument while standing in my bra, I proceeded to smash the door into the gorgeous jerk, trying to yank it shut. As you might imagine, I was freaked out when I discovered that the rude guy was my potential new boss. Yet he didn’t seem to recognize me. Or so I thought.... Until we wound up bickering again during my interview and he told me to go sniff my armpit.

My heart opens to Cooper Haywood the moment we meet. How can it resist? He's charming, devastatingly handsome, and sweeps me off my feet before I realize the impact he's making. And then it's too late. We fall too fast to worry about the consequences. We love so hard that we ache when we're apart. Even though I have a past that still haunts me and he has a future that could put us at risk, none of that matters when we're together. Until it does. And then everything changes.

In one second, my life disappeared. My past. My memories. My future. The only certainty I have from the last three years is that my older brother is dead and that I am the only eyewitness. In order to protect the case, the lawyers demand no one give me any information about my life...I must remember on my own. My only help comes from my brother’s best friend and world-renowned investigative reporter Spencer Cross. He has no idea how many nights I’ve spent dreaming of his name—and his body—next to mine. Each day we spend together, I find it harder to want my old life back.

After I’m arrested for throwing a raucous party, my hockey team says I have an image problem. And I need to fix it, stat. Charity work? Check. Haircut? Sure. But I draw the line at hiring my neighbor to style me. In the first place “style” shouldn’t be a verb. And I’m tired of people who’d judge me on appearances. Vera and I don’t see eye to eye on anything. She wants me to try on clothes, while I just want to remove hers. She's distractingly pretty, with soulful eyes and a sinful mouth that likes to argue with me.

After achieving the goals I set for myself, I walked away from my professional hockey career. It was a tough decision, but the right one at the time. When the Titans organization approached me about joining the team they were rebuilding following a devastating plane crash, I felt a passion for the game and a competitive spirit I hadn’t felt in years. The opportunity to make a huge difference to a lot of people spoke to me, and I accepted their offer and headed to Pittsburgh without a second thought.