Showing results by author "Winter Renshaw" in All Categories

Being an identical twin has its perks, but when my sister asked me to sub in for a date with Roman Bellisario, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. Sure, he’s sinfully handsome and successful, but he also got me fired from my dream job three years ago. This time, my sister’s promotion is riding on this date, so I have to say yes. And as it turns out, we’re strangely perfect for each other. I sell art. He collects it. We’re both obsessed with the same obscure, mysterious artist that most people don’t even know exists.

Dear Isaiah, eight months ago, you were just a soldier about to be deployed and I was just a waitress, sneaking you a free pancake and hoping you wouldn't notice that my gaze was lingering a little too long. But you did notice. We spent one life-changing week together before you left, and we said goodbye on day eight, exchanging addresses at the last minute. I saved every letter you wrote me, your words quickly becoming my religion. But you went radio silent on me months ago, and then you had the audacity to walk into my diner yesterday and act like you'd never seen me in your life.

My obsession was born of innocence and good intentions, and it began the day I spotted a handwritten journal lying in the bushes outside a townhouse on Lexington Avenue. It was raining sideways that morning, and my plan was to return it the next day, safe and dry. Only I kept it. I kept it, and I read it. A week later, overwhelmed with curiosity and feeling guilty for harboring secrets that didn't belong to me, I tried to return it. Only I wasn't expecting to meet him. Unapologetically heartless and enigmatically sexy, he claims he knows nothing about the journal.

For me, family is a curse. My father and brother made my life hell. My mother’s untimely death still keeps me up at night. Now that my brother, Donovan, has been killed in an accident, I can forget the past. The last remnant is the childhood home I’ve inherited—and which I intend to burn to the ground. The only obstacle? Anneliese Nielsen, Donovan’s fiancée.

The name on the screen was "Absinthe". But I knew her as the sultry voice blowing up my phone for late-night chats about Proust and Hemingway interspersed between the filthiest little...mutually satisfying exchanges...I'd ever experienced in my life. We'd never met. Until the day she walked into my office, her cherry lips wrapped around a candy apple sucker and an all too familiar voice that said, "You wanted to see me, Principal Hawthorne?"

After a brush with death, I realize it’s time to make changes in my life. Big changes. First, my job. I love being a journalist, but I hate my megawatt magnate boss, West Maxwell. When he demands I rewrite an article on short notice, I turn the tables on him with a scathing new column and quit in a blaze of glory. But West isn’t about to let me go that easily, the jerk. He offers me an unexpected new position: mentor to his rebellious teenage niece. For some reason, I agree—I like helping people, but I’m also admittedly curious to glimpse the man behind the mogul.

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride—and that’s the way I like it. I may be anti-marriage, but I’m still pro-romance. Case in point? That sexy curmudgeon I met last year during my cousin’s tropical bachelorette getaway. That grump was Dorian, the groom’s old college roommate, there for the bachelor party. I couldn’t get enough of his messy brown hair and gorgeous turquoise eyes. We connected on a deep level—emotionally and physically.

His name is Royal, but he's no prince charming. He's not even a prince - though you could say I loved him once upon a time. He was my older brother's best friend. Growing up, he sat at our dinner table every Sunday, teased me mercilessly, and pretended I annoyed him. When I was old enough, he took me on my first date. Royal taught me how to drive. Escorted me to my junior prom. Gave me my first kiss...among other things. He was my first taste of toe-curling, all-consuming, can't-sleep love.

Derek Rosewood is never going to marry - ever again. Fresh off the heels of a bitter divorce, there are only three things he cares about: his daughter, his career, and his bachelorhood. An attorney by trade and happily married to his job, he saves the drama for the courtroom and keeps women at arm's length. Their fragile, sequined hearts are safer that way. And besides, he's not in any condition to offer them the love and attention they so foolishly seek from him.

Trey Westcott - devastatingly gorgeous. Intimidatingly brilliant. Powerful beyond belief. As the first trillionaire in existence, my boss lives a life most people can only dream of. Anything he wants is a snap of the fingers away. But when the coldhearted magnate snaps his fingers and requests me for a stint on his arm playing the role of his devoted fiancée and then some, he makes an offer I can’t refuse. And so I don’t. But I make it clear that he’ll have my time, my body, my attention, my discreet professionalism - everything except my heart. It’s not for sale.

It was just a party. A silly little celebration with champagne and my best friends. As I blew out the candles on my divorce cake, I said good-bye to my failed marriage and embraced my future with open arms. But I didn't know the future was going to come in the form of a mysterious stranger sitting at the end of the bar, stealing glances all night. And I didn't know it at the time, but my future even had a name: Dante Amato.

The last time my father beat me to a bloody pulp was the night he walked in on me with his woman in his bed. To be fair, she seduced me. And to be honest, I liked it. But to CPS, I was a victim. They shipped me to Utah, where my estranged mother lived with her husband and two sister-wives. And that's when I met her. My innocent, wholesome, perfect step-sister. Well, one of many. But Waverly stood out because just like me, we'd been fighting a losing battle our entire lives. Falling for her was a mistake, but shit, it's not like I ever made good decisions.

I'm in the midst of scrawling "I quit!" onto his fancy cardstock letterhead when my boss corners me. He needs a favor, he says. And then he asks how well I can act. Hudson Rutherford needs a fiancée. With his old-moneyed parents forcing him to marry some bratty hotel heiress and his hedonistic, playboy lifestyle at stake, the only way to get them to back off is to make them think he's truly, madly, deeply in love...with me - his third personal assistant this year. But I can hardly stand working for him as it is.

Rhett Carson was as cold as the ice on which he skated. He was as calloused as the hands that shot the goals that won world championships. He was also damaged. And broken. And he didn't know it, but I knew all about him...and his unfortunate connection with my estranged older brother. I knew why he was so bitter and angry. I knew why he was so cold hearted. But I didn't know why I let myself fall in love with him. And I didn't know why I couldn't stop - even when he told me to.

I've never felt more alive than when I'm on my knees before my master. Some would say I should be ashamed. Others might say I'm filled with sin. I say I'm just a woman with unstoppable determination, doing whatever it takes to secure her freedom before the opportunity fades forever. Nobody knows about us. Not my father, my three mothers, or my seven brothers and sisters. I was bred to be chaste and true, expected to find a respectable polygamous man and carry on the tradition of our faith.

He said it would only hurt a little... On her 16th birthday, Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. On my 22nd, I pricked mine on the needle of a tattoo machine wielded by a beautifully complicated man who would go on to become my ruin.

It was an innocent mistake...All workaholic real estate broker Addison Andrews wanted was one night of pleasure, and picking the right guy was no different than shopping from a catalog, thanks to the dating app on her phone. His name was Wilder, and his profile was blank - just a sexy picture of a man who promised every wicked intention of a one-night stand. The agreement was simple. One night. No last names.

The moment Jude Warner walked into my life, he was just some handsome stranger in an expensive suit. A moment later I discovered he was my neighbor, both of us new to the building. Then he was the knight in shining armor who rescued my place from a late-night plumbing fiasco. The prince charming who offered me refuge and ice cream during a storm-fueled power outage. The bona-fide saint who volunteered to accompany me to my crazy sister’s wedding back in North Carolina. Falling for him was easy. Finding out exactly who he was? Earth-shattering.

In the Wakemont family, it’s tradition to arrange a marriage before the ink is dry on your birth certificate. I was five hours old when my father promised me to the son of a man with “more money than God.” As we grew older, my future groom and I were encouraged to exchange “love letters” to get better acquainted—except the correspondence he sent read more like hate mail. Slade Delacorte hated the arrangement. But more than that, he hated me. He was moody, intense, arrogant, and darkly gorgeous. A villain—not a prince. The last man on earth I’d ever marry (if I had the choice).

I didn’t know her name, but I heard her laugh, tasted her lips, and felt her warm skin as I held her in my arms. Together, we watched our young children playing in the sand, the warm ocean lapping at the shore behind them as the setting sun painted the sky. She was my soul mate, and this was our life, our beautiful forever.... Then I woke up - alone in a hospital room, connected to wires and machines. There was no wife, no kids, not a single soul waiting for me. That life I dreamt of never existed. The woman I loved, the woman I knew better than I knew myself - she wasn’t real.