Anónimo

Moving in with a billionaire playboy is supposed to be some sort of Cinderella story, right? I’m supposed to be having the time of my life while living the dream. Wrong. When the bank took our home, it didn’t come as a surprise. The bomb was when mom told me we were moving out of Breakers Flats, away from my crew, and to a place that only existed in fairy tales—Bellevue Springs. Home of the insanely beautiful, rich, and famous.

Warren Xavier is Alabaster Pen’s resident manipulative liar. The former pretty boy prince of Manhattan’s elite is now locked away with the rest of us. Nothing but time to sit and stew, scheme and obsess. And I’m the unlucky soul he’s made the object of his cunning affections.

I might be the most promising quarterback in college football today, but once I was just a boy desperately in love with the wrong girl, one I’d very much like to win back. She blocks me better than any player on the field, but to figure out my best play, first I need to understand how we got here. We have been apart longer than we were together but we can’t seem to stop torturing each other. Every guy she touches or allows to touch her is like a knife right to my heart. Not to be outdone, I play her game. No one will ever accuse me of giving less than everything.

It's scary how much life can change in an instant. One minute I'm preparing for a new school year in my San Diego town, and the next I'm being ripped from my childhood home. Making the cut from my father's death two years ago that much deeper. Not only am I being forced to leave a place that reminds me so much of him, but I'm being forced to move hundreds of miles across the country to a city I've only learned about through Mom and social media.

Joey is no stranger to romance. After all, his family wrote the book when it came to falling in love and finding their forever partners. There’s no doubt in his mind that his soul mate is out there as well. What he doesn’t expect is to be struck down with a serious case of instalove the second Lucy Storm steps off the front porch of her family’s farmhouse.

I knew better than to go to that party. I would have been much happier curled up at home eating Halloween candy by myself, but I had Mom’s voice in my head telling me to make an effort now that I was in college, to put myself out there and socialize. If I’d stayed home, I wouldn’t have met him.

I had a plan to get through senior year. Get good grades, stay busy with clubs, don’t forget to carve out time for Mom and Hannah, and most importantly, stay far, far away from Landon Atwater. That plan collapsed at the end of summer when my mom announced her surprise engagement… to Landon’s father. Now, I have to live with the jerk who has spent years tormenting me. At school, I could make sure we weren’t in the same classes and turn the other way if I saw him in the halls, but avoiding him gets a lot harder when I’m living in his seaside mansion.

What do you do when your worst enemies go down on their knees and invite you to the prom? I said yes because I'm still naïve enough to think that savages can be tamed. It's going to take a lot of groveling before I can forgive the Serpents for what they've done to me. I'm hoping this dance is their way of calling a truce. More likely, it's a trap. A school dance is the perfect place for them to orchestrate the ultimate public humiliation. Only one way to find out.

Death before dishonor. It's the most important rule and the easiest to break. Riding with the Knightdale Charter isn't my first choice. But home is where you go when you leave your heart in a pine box. Grief is like a magnet, and I'm surrounded by shadows. Living life among the darkness, just like her. She's buried an even bigger piece of herself than I have. And all she wants is to finally find the light.

Once upon a time, a lion saved a girl. His little cinnamon girl. That lion grew up into a prince. Dark, bitter, and so beautiful that it hurt to look at him. But underneath it all, the girl saw the man. She saw his hunger for love and affection, and she had plenty to give. I was that girl. I fell in love, even though he told me not to. I gave him everything, because that was who I was.