Those words had been shared with her by the one man she didn’t think she could take a chance on. She just didn’t know that he was right, or that he was going to be the one making her uncomfortable.

Nash Wilder Christopherson was the world’s golden boy.

For fifteen years, she watched Nash race from the safety of her phone. Every single race, PR event, ESPN interview—she was there for it. He was the one thing that kept her sane while having to live the life her father forced her to.

That was all he’d ever be to her, though. A face on the other side of the screen.

Until he showed up at her apartment complex, carried her sister down hundreds and hundreds of stairs during a fire, and changed her opinion of him.

Nash Christopherson was Mean. With a capital M. And he couldn’t stand her.

***

He thought he had everything under control. Then he met her.

Nash knew from the moment he saw Zip waiting in her apartment, looking panicked, that she was going to damage him. She was going to pull him in, chew him up, and spit him out.

What he didn’t know was just how much damage he could take.

Nearly a year passed as he tried and failed to stay away.

A full year of her smiles, her playful jabs, her teasing, her eyes on him.

Then he got news that changed his life, and she finally took matters into her own hands, forcing herself into his life and pretty much giving him everything he ever wanted.

Everything was great, until it wasn’t. Life smacked him hard, and when the dust settled, she was gone. The only sign that she was ever there was the cracked and bleeding heart, half beating inside his chest, that yearned to hold her one more time.