Fake It Till You Make It

Working for Chase Lancaster was supposed to catapult my marketing career. Instead, I'm trapped in personal-assistant hell. His hobbies include barking orders, torpedoing my advertising campaigns, and reducing the office staff to tears. On a good day, he acts like I'm invisible. On a bad day, I remind myself arsenic is not an acceptable sweetener for coffee. And prison orange would be murder on my complexion. Imagine my surprise when Chase follows me home to Bitter End, North Carolina, where I'm about to endure my ex-fiancé's wedding. The moment he chases off my date and offers to pose as my boyfriend, I know he's got a hidden agenda-especially when he plays the part a little too convincingly. Unfortunately, I have to play along to find out what he's really up to. To satisfy the town gossip squad, I'll have to let him kiss me. Who knew Satan's lips were so soft and inviting? And if we're really playing the part, we'll have to go to Lover's Lane-testing my willpower beyond its limits. The more time we spend together outside the office, though, the more I see a different side of him. He's still bossy and demanding, but is it wrong that I find it kind of...well...hot?

You can take the girl out of the south, but you can't take the south out of the girl. That's why Crash McClanahan is all wrong for me. The sexy, growly biker is just a big walking nope. Not going to happen. Never in a million years. Sure, his kisses are sweeter than iced tea in July. But I'm monograms and mimosas. He's bar fights and beer. I never wear white after Labor Day. He never leaves the house without his leathers. You get the idea. But when my new life in New York is upended and I have to go on the run, Crash is the only one who's there for me. He's the only one who has my back. He's the only man who drives me so crazy that I don't know if I want him to kiss me till I see stars or hop on his bike and disappear in a cloud of road dust. I know he's all wrong for me, so why does being with him feel so right?

That grin should come with a warning label: "Addictive. May cause dizziness, heart palpitations, dampened underwear, and a lifetime of regret." I've got plenty of reasons to hate Sebastian Monroe, the sexy lead singer of Heat Lightning: 1.) He doesn't remember our soul-scorching kiss ten years ago. 2.) He very rudely refused to play at my hometown's 300th-anniversary celebration. And 3.) he's a hotel trashing, arrogant, hot mess. Really hot. Sooo hot... Turns out, though, that I've got something he needs: the ability to mend his tattered reputation. He needs a fake fiancée, to make people think he's left behind his hell-raising ways. And I'm willing to play nice to get what I want—a hometown appearance of America's hottest Southern rock band. And now that I'm pretending to be his fiancée, I've got plenty of reasons to love Sebastian Monroe: 1.) It turns out he's just as good a kisser as he always was. 2.) He's hiding a big secret and a kinder heart than anyone gives him credit for. And 3.) our little act is starting to feel just as real off-stage as on.