Author Description

<p><i><b>The Goal: Take my first flight.</b></i></p><p>Twenty-seven-year-old Avery White was tired of waiting-waiting to live, waiting to breathe, waiting to finally put herself first. For years, she sacrificed everything to care for her ill mother, and now that chapter had closed. It was time to start living on her own terms. First up? Facing her fear and boarding an airplane for the first time. But when her best friend bails, she's left to take that step alone... or so she thought. <b>A fleeting, yet oddly intense, encounter with a stranger wasn't in the plan. Neither was what happened after.</b></p><p><i><b>The Plan: Enjoy my last days of freedom before duty calls.</b></i></p><p>For thirty-year-old Maasai McCarter, love had never been a choice-it was an obligation. <b>His entire life was carefully orchestrated, from the way he moved to the way he'd eventually settle down.</b> As the heir to his family's empire, there was no room for distractions, no room for detours. His fate was sealed. A week of reckless indulgence was supposed to be his final taste of freedom before locking himself into a future he never wanted. <b>But then <i>she</i> happened.</b> A chance meeting. A collision of two souls who weren't supposed to cross paths.</p><p><i><b>The Proposition: One night. No strings attached. No getting attached.</b></i></p><p><b>But the mind has a funny way of playing tricks on the heart.</b></p><p>What started as a simple escape-a single night of forgetting their realities-quickly turned into something much more complicated. <b>One night became two. Then three. Then an addiction neither of them could shake.</b> She was his peace, his chaos, his perfect distraction. But was she also his undoing?</p><p>Avery never intended to fall, but she also never expected to feel <i>seen</i>-<b>as if Maasai had cracked open the parts of her she kept hidden, the ones even she was afraid to explore.</b> He knew just what to say, just how to push, just how to make her question ever