Elena Moreau thought leaving France for college would be the hardest part.She was wrong.Thousands of miles from home, Elena arrives at Westbridge University in North Carolina with one suitcase, a scholarship, and no idea what her new life is supposed to look like. Everything is unfamiliar—the campus, the people, the parties, even the way everyone seems to know exactly where they belong.Then she meets Maya Carter, her loud, impossible-to-ignore roommate who quickly decides that Elena is going to experience college whether she likes it or not.And somewhere along the way, there is Ethan Calloway.Ethan is the kind of guy everyone seems to know. Confident without trying, intelligent without showing it, and surrounded by two best friends who somehow turn ordinary days into disasters.To Elena, he's just another stranger in a place full of them.At first.But college has a way of turning strangers into friends, friends into something more, and simple moments into memories that refuse to disappear.Between late-night conversations, crowded parties, friendships, secrets, mistakes, jealousy, laughter, and the uncertain future waiting beyond graduation, Elena and Ethan will discover that falling for someone is only the beginning.Because sometimes the hardest distance to cross isn't the distance between two countries.It's the distance between two people. #vote# #romance# #college# #love# #family# #couple# #adult# #thedistancebetweenus#

Fifteen million dollars. Twelve months. One marriage neither of them wants.Valerie Sinclair has spent years trying to build a future through hard work, not handouts. At twenty-four, she is an aspiring architect determined to establish herself on her own terms. But when her family's construction business collapses under crushing debt, the home she grew up in becomes the final thing standing between her family and financial ruin.With the bank threatening to take everything, Valerie has seventy-two hours to find a way out.Then Gabriel Westwood makes her an offer she cannot easily forget.At thirty, Gabriel is one of New York's most powerful billionaires, the ruthless chairman of Westwood Holdings, a man accustomed to getting what he wants without explaining himself. He doesn't believe in fairy tales, emotional promises, or marriages built on love. To him, everything has a price, and every agreement must serve a purpose.His grandfather's death has left him facing a condition that could cost him control of a substantial block of the family business. To secure his position, Gabriel needs a wife—and he needs one before time runs out.Valerie needs fifteen million dollars.Gabriel needs a twelve-month marriage.Their problems appear to have a convenient solution.His offer is simple: she marries him, plays the role of his wife in public, and receives the money necessary to save her family. In return, she agrees to remain married to him for one year under carefully negotiated terms.No promises of love. No expectations of affection. No pretending that a business arrangement is anything more than it is.For Valerie, accepting would mean saving her family at the cost of surrendering a year of her independence to a man who treats control like a second language.For Gabriel, marrying Valerie seems like a calculated decision—until she begins questioning things he has spent years keeping buried.Because he didn't choose her by accident.Fifteen years earlier, their families were connected by a business agreement that ended in financial loss, concealed records, and questions no one has been willing to answer. Valerie's father knows more than he admits. Gabriel's late grandfather left behind documents that contradict the official story. And somewhere in the shadows of their families' shared history lies a truth capable of changing everything Gabriel believes about the empire he inherited.When a confidential file disappears and an unexplained message appears in their marriage agreement, Gabriel begins to suspect that someone is watching their every move.Someone knows why he chose Valerie.Someone wants the past to remain buried.And someone may be willing to destroy them both to keep it that way.As Valerie enters Gabriel's world of corporate power, family rivalries, luxurious estates, and carefully guarded secrets, she discovers that being his wife comes with complications no contract could anticipate. Every public appearance becomes a performance. Every private conversation becomes a battle of wills. And every unexpected moment together makes the distance between them harder to maintain.Gabriel is used to people agreeing with him, fearing him, or wanting something from him. Valerie does none of these things in the way he expects. She challenges his decisions, refuses to be intimidated by his wealth, and insists on protecting the career she has worked so hard to build.She may need his money, but she refuses to become another possession in his collection.And Gabriel, who believes every problem can be solved with enough influence, is about to discover that money cannot purchase trust.Their arrangement begins with suspicion and mutual convenience. Attraction arrives when neither is prepared to admit it. Jealousy complicates their carefully established boundaries, while old enemies and unexpected revelations threaten to turn a temporary marriage into a dangerous game neither knows how to leave.But attraction is not love, and desire does not erase the reasons they agreed to keep their hearts out of the bargain.When the truth about their families begins to emerge, Valerie must decide whether the man beside her is protecting her, using her, or hiding something that could shatter everything they have built.Gabriel, meanwhile, faces a choice far more difficult than securing his inheritance: whether to preserve the power he has spent his life defending or risk it by confronting the truth about the people who made him who he is.Because the greatest threat to their marriage may not be the people determined to destroy it.It may be the secrets they keep from each other.And when the twelve months are over, the contract will give Valerie the right to walk away with her future secured.But what happens when the woman Gabriel married for convenience becomes the one person he cannot afford to lose?Some marriages begin with love. Theirs begins with a price.And the truth may cost them far more than either ever agreed to pay.