Ali Hazelwood

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.

Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

Problematic Summer Romance

Sophia

“I didn’t think pasta could taste bad,” I tell Nyota, washing it all down with my third negroni. She grimaces into her wine. “And yet.”

But after I come back from the restroom, I notice that the flavor and the consistency have vastly improved. It even looks better.

“Hark switched his plate with yours when he thought I wasn’t paying attention,” Nyota whispers at me, her told you so stare even more pronounced than usual.

My heart skips so violently, I have to stop. Here, in the middle of a busy sidewalk. “You better take it off, or I’m going to abuse my privileges.”

“How about you just don’t, Trouble?”

“Doesn’t sound like me, though. Anyway, I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

That everything Minami had to fight and scrape and beg to learn, every little detail about Conor’s family, I knew already. He told me when we first met in Scotland. He told me over countless late-night phone calls over the past three years. He told me when I asked, and he told me when I didn’t.

Because one day, Conor Harkness decided that he wanted someone to know him. And he chose 

“It’s different. He’s different. With you, I mean. I think it’s the way he looks at you. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Like…Like he could become unhinged really quickly.” A sigh. “In the last couple of years, he’s been very protective of you, but—”

“It’s funny. Ten months ago, you tried to eject me from your life, but you never once managed to say that you didn’t want me. And tonight…” A flick of my free wrist. “All you need to say is that your days have been better without me in them, and that I should leave you alone. And I will never bother you again.”

He lets go of me. His face shutters. “Some lies are too big. Even for me.”

“I’m not afraid of you. I am afraid of myself, and of the person I become when I’m around you.” He leans over me, crowds me, his eyes a cold burn into mine. “I have never wanted anything as desperately, as ungovernably, as persistently as I want you. Not a single goddamn thing. Not my dead mother back. Not revenge. Not the well-being of the people I love. Not professional success, not even my own happiness. Absolutely nothing has consumed me as mercilessly as you have.”

A smile tugs at his lips. “I said that it would pass for you, Maya. I was never under the illusion that it would so much as fade, for me. And I was prepared for it.” A heartbeat. “I still am.”

“In the fantasy, you’re my girlfriend. My…More than that, maybe. I figured out a way to have you and also set you free. And you are—” He looks away, like out of all the embarrassments, this is the one that burns the brightest. “I’m not afraid to hurt you. You are mine, and used to me touching you. You welcome it. It’s…We have a life, Maya. That’s ours.”

“I…sure. I’d love for you to be my girlfriend.”

“Excuse me, but that doesn’t sound enthusiastic.”

“If you just want to be fuckbuddies, you can say so.”

“I just don’t understand what it is that you—”

All of a sudden, he’s leaning forward. A challenging, burning, searching light in his eyes.

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