Arabella Rivera has spent her whole life trying to be the girl everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter with perfect grades and a perfectly planned future. But perfection comes at a price, and she's tired of carrying the weight of expectations that were never truly hers. Then there's Haiden Cross. Her next-door neighbor. The boy mothers warn their daughters about. He skips class, breaks rules, collects hearts without keeping any, and somehow leaves chaos wherever he goes. Arabella knows better than to get involved with someone like him. Until one night changes everything. Determined to protect herself, Arabella convinces herself it meant nothing. After all, boys like Haiden don't fall in love, and girls like her don't make reckless mistakes. Only staying away from him proves harder than she expected. Because Haiden keeps showing up in the spaces she thought belonged only to her. He notices the smiles she fakes, the pressure she hides behind straight A's, and the lonely girl beneath the perfect image everyone else seems to admire. As family secrets threaten to tear lives apart and friendships are tested in ways neither of them saw coming, Arabella is forced to ask herself one terrifying question: Is protecting her heart worth losing the one person who has ever truly seen it? Because sometimes, by the time you realize you were supposed to guard your heart...you've already handed it to someone who was never meant to keep it.

Sophie thought losing her cheating boyfriend was the worst thing that could happen. She was wrong. Forced into her mother’s billionaire household, Sophie walks straight into the unfinished past with her stepbrother, Liam Thorne. He owns the city. He owns the room she’s sleeping in. And he makes it painfully clear that she does not belong. But when Sophie is in a dangerous situation, Liam becomes her shield. He is ruthless, protective, and impossible to ignore. She should hate him. She should leave. But some forbidden bonds don’t fade. They burn.