If anyone on Earth should know that, it’s Milena Semyonov.

She’s suffered blow after blow, and the hits just keep on coming.

Just when she’s sworn off being happy, that maybe being numb is the better way to navigate life, she meets him.

Cutter Carson Clayborne.

The man that finally shows her how a real man is supposed to treat her.

Just when she didn’t think life could get any worse, the man that abused her as a young, impressionable teen is back, showing her that life can, in fact, get worse.

When she’s ready to quit, Cutter is there, making sure that she knows that he’ll be there, whether she wants him there or not.

He is her husband, after all. And the unlikely pair have an understanding that they’ll stay married for two years, make a baby, and join two crime syndicates in unholy matrimony.

Cutter has other plans, though. He only agrees to the original plan to make her his.

He won’t ever give her up. What’s his stays his. And there’s not a man on the earth that’ll ever touch Milena again. Not with Cutter alive and able to take out anyone that tries.

Nastya Semyonov first met Haze at a bar, but for Haze Hopkins, duty calls before either can act on their desires. He’s gone without a glance back, leaving her thinking that maybe all the hot looks were only one-sided.

Fast forward to the next day, Nastya hitches a ride to her car that she left behind the night before, only to run into the same man from last night.

Neither one truly thinks before they act, and they spend a hot fifteen minutes in a fast-food restaurant bathroom before parting ways again.

It’s as she’s walking back to her car that she realizes how badly she’s screwed up.

Because her car is surrounded in police tape, and there’s one very angry man wearing a badge standing in front of it with her name on an arrest warrant for killing a man.

Mistakes were made. Repeatedly.

But Detective Haze Hopkins isn’t complaining.

He was ready to quit, anyway.

Crime pays better.

The place where normal people reside, understanding that there are two sides to every coin. People that do bad things for good reasons. People that do bad things for bad reasons.

First, I knew that Shasha Semyonov was a bad man. One that did bad things for bad reasons. That didn’t mean that I was rational when it came to him.

He was toxic to my health, yet I wanted him anyway.

They say the first step to healing is admitting when you have a problem.

My problem happened to be six feet two inches tall, two hundred and twenty pounds, and bearded to perfection.

Oh, and he was also the scariest guy I knew.

Meanwhile, I was the laughingstock of the city.

The woman who was cheated on by her boyfriend with her best friend, and it was captured live while a band played in the background, perfectly accenting the humiliating video.

There was no way that Shasha Semyonov would notice me.

Right?

I’d definitely been noticed.

Dixie met Mary in a bar in the middle of nowhere. He knew the moment she served him “whatever the hell she wanted to” that she was the one.

That day, he takes her from her abusive life and gives her everything she’s ever wanted.

For thirty-one years, they’re married. For thirty-one years, he worships the ground she walks on. For thirty-one years, she makes him the happiest man on the planet.

They have babies. They lose babies. They laugh and they love. They’ve fought and they’ve struggled.

But nothing prepares him for the day she leaves him. The day that his life ends, and he goes on existing, waiting for the day that he can join her again.

Join Dixie as he remembers the love of his life in this heartbreaking story that speaks of love and loss and finally, a happily ever after.

Jeremiah Dixon has a way with words.

In the professional hockey world, he’s known as Mr. Suave. The man who always says the right thing and can charm the pants off of anyone.

Of course, when a damsel in distress falls into his arms after practice, he can’t stop himself from pursuing her. Who wouldn’t instantly fall in love with a woman who looked like Merriam Kennedy did?

She was beautiful, fierce, and everything he’s ever wanted in a woman.

They fall in love with each other over wings and beer. But before he can get her number, she leaves and takes his heart with her.

As luck would have it, he runs into her a few days later. She’s still as beautiful as ever, with a sizable bruise on her face and defeat haunting her eyes.

He tries to break through her walls, but she’s adamant that she can make it on her own.

Until, that is, her abusive father threatens her baby girl. Then she has no other choice but to run into a blizzard on Christmas Eve to escape him. And she knows just where to go.

To him. Jeremiah Dixon—the man that her heart and soul know is the one meant to fix all the broken things inside of her.

His one, however, had a fiancé. And she was rich. She also lived out of state.

So what other option did he have but to let her go?

Years later, he sees her again at her worst.

Her husband-to-be has stranded her on a hiking trail with a head wound, convinced she’s faking her blindness.

Garrett takes one look at the injured Bindi Howe and knows there’s no way she’s faking it.

Rushing her to the hospital, he gets her there just in time to save her life.

During the craziness, Garrett has no clue it’s her—his one.

He leaves her there with her family and goes back home to his lonely life.

Only fate intervenes for him a third time, and it’s then that Garrett decides that he’s going to go for it.

But, like always, life intervenes, and he’s forced to leave her behind once again to keep her safe.

As luck would have it, fate gives him one last shot, and brings them together one last time, and Garrett refuses to let her go, despite Bindi’s fiancé coming back begging for a second chance.

There are times you think you can cope, that you can make it despite the hollow feeling in your chest. Then there are the times when you realize you can’t breathe through the pain of loss.

When Gable Buchanan Carter walks into Athena’s life, it’s like a light is switched on inside her chest. Suddenly she can breathe.

But just as much as she wants him, Gable just as much wants nothing to do with her.

It’s like a cold stab of ice right to the gut at the knowledge that the person you want, that you love, wants nothing to do with you.

At least, that’s what she thinks.

In reality, Gable wants Athena Grace Murphy with every piece of his soul.

But how can he confidently say he’s doing the right thing by bringing her into his life when it’s so dangerous? She’s already lost every person she loves, how can he put her through the possibility of losing one more?

That’s right, he can’t.

So he’ll stay away from her. Even if it kills him.