Gilded Hearts Collection

She refuses to be anyone's almost.Luca Bataglia was never supposed to matter.Not to Samorena Maduo.Not when she had spent her entire life choosing ambition over distraction, discipline over chaos, and certainty over heartbreak.But Luca is impossible to ignore.One of the world's most celebrated footballers, he lives beneath stadium lights, global headlines, and relentless public scrutiny. Beautiful, charismatic, and emotionally unavailable in all the ways that matter most.What begins as an unexpected connection quickly becomes something deeper. Something neither of them is prepared for.Until timing, ambition, distance, and the weight of their separate worlds force Samorena to walk away before love destroys everything she worked to build.A year later, Luca is finally ready to choose her.The problem?It might already be too late.Something Real is an emotional contemporary romance about ambition, heartbreak, second chances, and the kind of love that refuses to stay forgotten. Whitney Galeage is a romance author whose heart beats in Botswana, though her stories roam far beyond its borders. From a young age, she found refuge in fictional worlds-dreamscapes rich with longing, heartache, and the kind of love that lingers long after the last page. That same yearning now fuels her writing, which brims with emotional intensity, tender vulnerability, and the undeniable magic of connection.Her debut novel, You Always, is a much-anticipated contemporary romance that explores the delicate balance between ambition and the aching desire to be truly seen and loved. .With a storyteller's instinct for truth and transformation, Whitney writes about the secrets that shape us, the courage it takes to begin again, and the kind of love that invites healing and hope. Her characters are dreamers, fighters, and lovers-people you'll root for, cry with, and never forget.