Compass (Cherry)

After leaving the city life behind to escape my loveless marriage, I moved to small-town Havenbarrow for a fresh start. What I didn't expect was to find myself drawn to the town's black sheep. They called him troubled, cold, a man with a dark past. What everyone seemed to miss about Jax was the splashes of light in his eyes, the random acts of kindness he performed when no one was watching, and the way he made me smile and laugh. Jax helped unpack the baggage I'd been carrying around with me. He was patient with my pain and gentle with my scars. He was the stillness during my hurricane. Yet when both of our pasts came back to haunt our present days, we realized quickly that sometimes love stories don't end the way we'd hoped. Sometimes you were left with only the damage from the storm.

I once met a man on a cold Halloween night. He dressed as a superhero, and I dressed in red. For one night, I was his break from reality, and he was the temporary fix for my broken heart. Two years later, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to become a senior editor at one of the biggest magazine companies in the world. The only catch? Nail an exclusive interview with New York's finest bachelor: Connor Roe. To the rest of the world, he was becoming one of the wealthiest men in New York City. To me, he was simply my once-upon-a-time superhero. My job was to get an exclusive interview with New York's hottest bachelor. Never in my life did I expect him to want an exclusive with my heart, too. The only problem with my growing feelings for him? I was set to marry his new business partner.

I'd never met my father, but on the day he died, he left me a letter. He said he'd leave all of his millions to me if I completed the tasks on his list. The first task at hand? Move into the same household as Stella Lane, my new step-sister. Stella was cold. I was ice, too. Stella was lonely. I craved being alone. Stella didn't speak unless she had something to say. Each month, a new letter arrived with a new task. Each month, the tasks grew darker as more secrets of my past were revealed. Somehow every task circled back to the lonely girl living down the hall from me. Stella Lane didn't speak unless she had something to say. All I wanted was for her to have something to say to me.

Breaking up with your high school sweetheart is one thing. Breaking up with Hollywood's favorite actor? That's an entirely different situation. I'd been in love with Aiden Walters since I was a little girl. We'd grown up as neighbors in small town Wisconsin. I knew him inside and out, and he knew every single piece of me. I was there when his career took off, and I was almost certain I'd always be a part of his life. It wasn't until a scandal broke out that I was forced to end things with Aiden. He didn't take it very well. The boy I once loved began to hate me. He went off to California, leaving his entire past behind, including me. Five years later, he's back in town for a few months to care of some family business. He's staying in the only hotel in our small town, the hotel I now oversee. For the next few months, I'll be forced to cater to the man whose heart I broke all those years ago, a man who resents me, a man who swore he would never speak to me again. Now that he's back in town, in constant proximity to me, I have to keep reminding myself daily why I ended things with him in the first place. Otherwise, I'll find myself falling in love with him all over again. Only this time, I'm certain that, if I do fall, he won't be willing to catch me.