Donya Stewart's chest filled with the soft beating wings of butterflies when she first met Emmet Grayne's green eyes at the ripe age of five. Unable to identify the tugging pressure within her when in his presence, Donya moved through the first several years of her life addled by her feelings for the boy who was her best friend's brother and very much like her own sibling. But one cool autumn night in her mystifying teenage years, Emmet erases any ideas Donya has of him being anything like a sibling.

Charlotte and Nathan were supposed to be forever. They grew up together. Their families were intertwined. Charlotte was Nathan's first love. Nathan was Charlotte's first everything. Until they weren't. How do you hold on to the person you know in your heart you are supposed to be with when everything and everyone in the universe is telling you it's over? How many times does a heart break? When is enough enough? How long is forever?

Three novellas from Alexa Riley: Stay Close: A former Russian mafia soldier is hired to protect a friend’s daughter, but he knows he’ll do more than keep her safe - he’ll make her his. Forever. Hold Tight: A hotshot consultant hired to streamline Osbourne Corp. meets his match in Pandora Justice. Don’t Go: CEO Henry Osbourne has only ever desired one woman - the one who got away. She ran from a boy, but a man of power and persuasion now stands in his place.

Reid Jackson - I’m a simple guy. There are only two things I love: my family and playing professional football. I may not understand why people get married, but I’d go anywhere for my brother, even his friend Camille’s wedding. Once I’m there, I realize our Bronx upbringing has left me unprepared for the world of old Southern money. Over 24 hours, I see scandal, threats, and lies. It’s a life I don’t relate to, a place I never want to belong. Even so, when the minister asks if anyone objects, I shock not only myself but also the beautiful bride when I stand up.

As one of the big names at his family's gym, Legends, MMA star Rory Kavanagh is used to being in the spotlight - until a gruesome leg injury knocks him out of the cage. Rory is left feeling sidelined in more ways than one, battling the inner demons that come with losing the one shot at his dreams. Then Clare walks into his life and gives him a new dream: winning her heart. There aren't many new faces in Woodlawn these days, but this tough, beautiful stranger makes Rory want to get his life back into fighting shape.

Abby Davis isn't wearing a skimpy bikini or sipping umbrella drinks, not when she's busy chasing around four little ones. And Matt McKinney isn't looking for fun - he's a Navy SEAL, a grown man with a long list of missions and fallen brothers. Abby has brought her children to this beach to start over, to give them the enjoyable memories they deserve. Matt has been sidelined by a combat injury, and he is haunted by the loss of his best friend and the promise he made: to remain a SEAL - focused and dedicated.

Taylor Shaw had the perfect life - until she was 16. That was when everything changed. From that moment on, life went from bad to worse...to the worst. After recovering from a brain tumor, months later, she suffers the tragic loss of her whole family. Since that fateful day, she's been coasting through life. Now the brain tumor has returned, and Taylor decides she's had enough. She's going to take her fate into her own hands. No more hospitals. No more surgeries. No more anything.

Easy to love, easy to leave. With her ex-fiance's words, "I'm in love with someone else," still ringing in her ears, Clare Franklin flies off on her would-be honeymoon alone. Resigned to the fact that not everyone gets a happily ever after, she's sworn off men. Until she gets tangled up, quite literally, with one very sexy veterinarian. The only thing Dr. Deacon Montgomery is looking to share is his surgical expertise, but his instant attraction to Clare makes him wonder if he could be more than just a doctor and daddy to his twin two-year-old daughters.

I think for sure it must've been a dream because there's no way a guy could look like that, touch me like that, and be so in tune with me on every known level and disappear, leaving me with nothing but a good story to tell my friends. When he walks into my bar three months later, everything I thought I knew and what we'd had disappears in the blink of an eye and the blinding light of the three-carat diamond on his fiancee's hand.

It's been 12 years since Tru Bennett last saw Jake Wethers, her former best friend and boy she once loved. Jake Wethers, sexy, tattooed, and deliciously bad lead singer, and brains behind The Mighty Storm, one of biggest bands in the world, left Tru with a broken heart when he moved from England to America with his family when they were both 14. Sent to interview Jake for her music column by the magazine she works for, they are both unprepared for the sparks that fly the instant they reconnect.

For four years, Grace Sullivan wrote to a Marine she never met, and fell in love. But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she's decided? No way is Noah Jackson - or any man - ever going to break her heart again.

Love is fatal; a snake that slithers into your life, poisons you with its venom, and leaves you there to die. I swore I wouldn’t be my parents. I swore I would stay away from the limelight. Falling in love with a musician was definitely out of the question. Weston Carter was all kinds of wrong for a girl like me. He was a musician, a womanizer, and a first class heartbreaker. I didn't know a love like this could exist. Our love was epic, the kind people wrote stories about. We fell into it hard, unable to control our feelings. I set myself up for a shattered heart.

Forty-five, recently divorced and a certified hot mess. The last thing Fiona needs to start her vacation is a flooded hotel room and a broken-down car. Alas, that’s what she gets. She’s ready to pack it all in and go home - wherever that is - when her knight in a wet T-shirt strides in to save the day. Jaw-dropping, panty-melting Grant Greene takes the 'mess' out of 'certified hot mess' when he walks up to Fiona and offers her a room to stay. No strings attached. Great, right?

Haunted by the responsibility of caring for her troubled family, Maya Jacobs gave the only answer she could when Cameron asked her to marry him. Years later, entrenched in a soulless professional routine, she distracts herself from the lingering regret of her decision with a "work hard, play hard" lifestyle that guarantees no man will ever find his way into her heart again.

Virginity. Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible - a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half a brain would ever believe. And as if that weren't embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theater professor....