Author K. A. Linde presents One Cruel Night, a prequel to the Cruel series.

He’s too hot for this small town. Too polished for this seedy bar. And a hundred percent my type. Our connection is immediate. The desire is blatant. I’ve never felt anything like it. Then, I make the mistake of a lifetime: I let him walk out. I’m still kicking myself when I show up to my best friend’s Wright family pool party. I walk outside and stop dead. He’s here. And he’s a Wright cousin. My best friend’s brothers are off limits, but she never said anything about her cousin.

Gavin King is not boyfriend material. And neither am I. That’s how our friendship works. We flirt and tease and joke, but at the end of the day, playing wingman is preferable to risking my heart.

I shouldn’t have hooked up with my one-night stand...again. To be fair, I was having the worst day of my life. I was sure that nothing else could go wrong. Then in walks Jordan Wright. We have a heated history, and I’ve been avoiding him. Not least of all because he’s a hundred percent my type with those big brown eyes, a ripped body, and his blisteringly broody charm. I said I’d never go near him again. But he’s there for me when I need him. And well, old habits die hard.

Once I saw Marnie Long, a sassy, sultry, charismatic older woman in a bar, I couldn’t peel my eyes off her. I wanted her. At least, for one night. I’m way too busy with my career these days for anything more. As it turned out, after recently getting burned, Marnie was on the same page as me—all she wanted was one night of fun. I was happy to be of service. What I didn’t expect during our night together, however, was how deeply we connected. And how much I was dying to see her again the next morning.

I was a small-town girl with big city dreams and more ambition than money to my name. He had everything—money, privilege, and the world at his feet. Opposites in every way, but that didn’t matter. We were lightning in a bottle, and everything felt possible when we were together. Life was perfect.

At first, I thought I’d hate spending the summer with Archie Remington—the conceited son of my parents’ friends. What I knew about Archie: He was gorgeous, pre-law, and had always treated me like I didn’t exist when we were younger. When our families bought a house together on an island in Maine, he and I were forced to share a bathroom.

Holt Sebastian is royalty in our world. As CEO of the Sebastian News Corp, he’s the man with all the power. The man who decides if I’ll always just be a local television anchor or if I’ll be the rising star of my own show.

Rule number one for having a one-night stand: Don’t fall for the girl. After a lengthy dating slump, I finally met someone who sparked my interest. Well, first the sparks flew when we argued. Later in the evening those sparks ignited into something more. I was drawn to Devyn, in a way I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Needless to say, I was disappointed when she abruptly left after our amazing night together. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. But she hadn’t even given me her number. In a city with eight-million people, I figured I’d never see Devyn again.

For the last year, I’ve wanted someone I can’t have. The man my father built his latest multimillion-dollar business with. He’s nearly a decade older than I am, and he’s entirely forbidden. The fact that he’s never given me a second glance only makes me long for him more.

Eden Murphy came into my club looking to make some extra cash. A girl like her didn't belong in a place like this. She'd get ripped to shreds. Most likely by me. There's nothing but sweetness dripping from her sexy little body, and I'm the monster who's salivating to get a taste.

Football star. Single dad. And once, a long time ago, mine. I’ve spent the better part of a decade forgetting Ford Ellis. If he had just stayed away from Montana, I might have erased the memory of his striking blue eyes and rugged smile forever. Avoiding him was easy when the only place I saw his face was on ESPN—and a remote control could fix that problem.

Eleven years ago, I met him. A year later, I was betrothed to him. Now he’s come to claim me, slaughtering anyone standing in his way. My husband-to-be is a monster from a family as ruthless and powerful as mine, a man who deals in violence and destruction...a man terrifyingly like my father. For more than a decade, he’s stalked me, shadowing my life. I fear him. I hate him. Worst of all, I want him. My name is Alina Molotova, and Alexei Leonov is a fate I can’t escape.

Rule number one for dating your best friend’s sister: Don’t. Just don’t do it. Especially when your best friend is dead and the last thing he made you promise him was that you’d keep an eye on his little sister, but not too good of an eye.

I landed in hot water with the tabloids one too many times. What can I say? My nipple wanted to come out and say hi to the paparazzi. After that, my father presented me with an ultimatum—either he cuts off the gravy train and stops paying for my lavish lifestyle or I agree to have a live-in bodyguard. And by bodyguard, I mean a sexy, formidable, out-of-this-world babysitter who just happens to be good at breaking spines. Ransom Lockwood, ladies and gentlemen.

When Liz Dougherty’s first reporting assignment for her North Carolina college newspaper finds her covering a state senator’s impromptu press conference, she has no idea how drastically her life is about to change. Senator Brady Maxwell may look the part with his devastating good looks and impeccable style, but his politics rub Liz the wrong way, and she’s not going to let him off easy. Liz’s hardball question catches Brady off guard and shows her editor, Hayden Lane, that she’s headed places as journalist. But to Liz’s surprise, she’s also headed for a secret, high-stakes romance with Brady Maxwell.

I was young and naive when I fell hard for bad boy Grizz, a shifter who was hot enough to melt my good girl heart. Big mistake. Because when good girls are naughty, they end up pregnant. Now I’m back in Forest Heights to care for my aunt with my son Rainer — the son I’ve been raising on my own for nine years because gruff, tough Grizz didn’t believe our baby was possible.

Tessa O'Connell is a girl as ordinary as they come - or so she thinks. Her aim for senior year is to keep her head down yet somehow manage to convince her childhood love, Jay Stone, to love her back. What she isn't prepared for is for Jay's brother, Cole, to return to town and change the life she's always been seemingly content to live. Tall, gorgeous as all hell, and a bad boy with ocean blue eyes and the perfect edge of adorability, he was her greatest tormentor, her number one enemy.

We have reputations for a reason. His? Spencer Beckett: Princeton Charming. Ivy League Playboy. Rich AF. Hers? Charlotte Hayes: Campus sweetheart. Virgin. Working her booty off to get through this last semester. When a bet pushes these two together, it's fire and ice...and Charlotte is melting. Fast. But Charlotte has a chip on her shoulder. She doesn't believe that fairy tales exist in the real world.

I’m the type of girl who’s given up on fairy tales. So when Beck – the hot new busboy at work - starts flirting with me, I know better than to get my hopes up. Happily ever afters aren’t for the average. I learned that the hard way. But how can I be expected to resist a man who can quote Austen, loves making me laugh, and seems to be everything hot and good in this world? Only there’s so much more to him than that. Billionaire playboy? Check. Troubled soul? Check.

What happens when you’re forced to seduce the one person you vowed never to love? You get screwed...in more than one way. I walked out of Tucker Middleton’s bedroom seven years ago, leaving him hurt and angry. Now I need his help; the only way I can get it is to make him think I want him back. The only problem is we have silently vowed to hate one another for the rest of our lives. In order to get Tucker to help me - I have to seduce him. Easy right? Hell yes! I’m the CEO of CMI Consulting. If I set my mind to something, I make it happen.

My name is Adelaide Edington, and my life was mapped out for me before I even entered the world: who I'd date, where I’d attend college, what I'd be when I grew up. But there comes a time in everyone's life when they face a fork in the road. Should I go left, or should I go right? It didn't matter as long as I didn't remain stagnant any longer. Jett Stone opened me up to a whole new world, reminding me that it was okay to find my own way. I could have roots in Willow Springs and still spread my wings and fly. What I didn't expect was to fall in love with the broody football player.

For the past 20 years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.

Rena Jackson is ready. She's worked her tail off to open up her own hair salon, and she's almost ready to quit her job at the dive bar. Rena's also a diehard romantic, and she's had her eye on bar regular Axel Heller for a while. He's got that tall-brooding-and-handsome thing going big time. Problem is, he's got that buttoned-up Germanic-ice-man thing going as well. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, Rena's about ready to give up on Axel and find her own Mr. Right.

Once upon a time, a girl loved a boy and he loved her back. They lived happily ever after. But our story was never that simple. I loved Josh with all I had, right until the day he left. Now, all these years later, he was back - and wanting me the way I'd always longed for him. Except now, I belonged to someone else. Someone who never left me the way Josh had. I figured that was the end of our story. I couldn't alter the past. I didn't want to rewrite my future.

Liza B.—the only DJ who gives a jam—wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But her planned protest at a corporate event takes a turn after she mistakes the smoldering-hot CEO for the waitstaff. When they go toe-to-toe, the sparks fly—but her impossible-to-ignore family thwarts her every move. Liza wants Dorsey Fitzgerald out of her hood, but she’ll settle for getting him out of her head.

When Avery Shaw’s heart is shattered by her life-long best friend, she chooses to deal with it the only way she knows how - scientifically. The state science fair is coming up, and Avery decides to use her broken heart as the topic of her experiment. She’s going to find the cure. By forcing herself to experience the seven stages of grief through a series of social tests, she believes she will be able to get over Aiden Kennedy and make herself ready to love again. But she can’t do this experiment alone, and her partner (ex partner!) is the one who broke her heart.

Perpetual good girl Caterina Longo is dependable to a fault. At 33, she’s never called in sick. Never had a one-night stand. Never taken a chance in her entire life. When she walks in on a cheating ex and sees everything wrong with her life, she takes off on a solo vacation, busting out of her comfort zone and into the arms of a guy she never saw coming.

I've always regretted not being confident enough to talk to my college crush. When he shows up during my friend's bachelorette party, I refuse to let my second chance slip through my fingers.

Rising star cellist Kate Flynn is new to Chicago and her job at the Windy City Chamber Ensemble. On day one, she is surprised by the board's intriguing president, Vivian Kensington. Not only does the woman come with a formidable reputation, but she's also deaf. However, between a familiar face Kate isn't ready to see again and the difficulties of being a single mom, she isn't sure Chicago is the right place for her.