The Exception

I was born into British aristocracy, but I've made my fortune in Manhattan. New York is now my kingdom. Back in Britain, my family is fighting over who's the next Duke of Fairfax. The rules say it's me - if I'm married. It's not a trade-off worth making. I could never limit myself to just one woman. Or so I thought until my world is turned upside down. Now, the only way I can save the empire I built is to inherit the title I've never wanted - so I need a wife. To take my mind off business I need a night that's all pleasure.

By the age of 30, I had suffered more tragedies in my life than anyone should ever have to experience. Even though I ran and owned a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that I saved from bankruptcy, had more money than I could spend, and lived in a high-rise penthouse on Fifth Avenue, my life was still desolate and empty. I closed off my heart and myself to everyone. This was my life until a woman named Zoey Benson crossed my path. For the first time in over five years, I felt something. A feeling that I had long buried deep inside me. A feeling I never wanted to experience again.

My best friend, Natalie, has been by my side through everything. Leaning on my shoulder, borrowing my sweatshirts…and making my pants too tight when she flashes me that sassy smile that drives me crazy. But she has no idea about that last part. She doesn't have a clue I've felt this way about her for years. Until one night after too many cocktails, we fall into bed together. I'm flirting with my forever…she just doesn't know it yet. 

Have sex with a stranger in a foreign country. It was on my list. It was something I'd never done before, and I wasn't sure if I could go through with it. But I did. That one night was the best night of my entire life. He was sexy, intense, and made me feel things I had never felt before. The next morning, the thrill was over, and he was gone before I woke up. What happened in London should have stayed in London, but it didn't. I was never supposed to see him again, but the universe had other plans.

Gavin Kingsley burst into my life in a sharp and unexpected twist of fate. You know his type - arrogant, dangerously handsome and impossible to ignore. Something dark within him calls to the shadows inside me. I long for the kind of heart-wrenching passion I've only read about, and his tragic past reads like one of my favorite literary classics. Raw. Visceral. Captivating. Together, we're a perfect mess. The deeper I fall into his world, the more I crave him like a drug - he pushes every boundary I have and challenges everything I thought I wanted.

Being labelled a player never stopped me from being successful with women. Until I met Truly Harbury. Truly was the first girl who ever turned me down. And she might just be the first woman with whom I ever fall in love. When an emergency means she needs my help running her family’s charity, I’m happy to introduce her to the glitz and glamour of the London business world - taking her to dinners, coaching her through speeches, zipping up the sexy evening gown I helped her pick out. The more time we spend together, the more I want to convince her I’m not a man to avoid.

My name is Emily Wade and I was raised to believe that happily ever after didn't exist. That relationships were doomed before they even started, and that as long as the attraction to someone is purely physical, life is uncomplicated and good. I lived by that and was probably the only anti-relationship person in the world. I found myself in the midst of so much man drama that I decided to take a hiatus from the dating world. Until I met the brutally handsome CEO of Caine Property Development & Management, Jackson Caine.

I was a charmer, a seducer, and the woman that men were hungry to get their hands on. Rich men never should have trusted me, but they did. It was stupidity on their part. Things were going well and I was doing what I was supposed to do, until I ripped off the wrong millionaire. A millionaire who came after me with a vengeance. My name is Kate Harper and this is my story.

Bennett Fox walked into my life on one hell of a crappy Monday morning. I was late for the first day at my new job - a job I’d now have to compete for, even though I’d already worked eight years to earn it, because of an unexpected merger. While I lugged my belongings up to my new office, a meter maid wrote me a parking summons. She’d ticketed a long line of cars - except for the Audi parked in front of me, which happened to be the same make and model as mine. Annoyed, I decided to regift my ticket to the car that had evaded a fine.

Anna Kirby is sick of dating. She's tired of heartbreak. Despite being smart, sexy, and funny, she's a magnet for men who don't deserve her. A week's vacation in New York is the ultimate distraction from her most recent break-up, as well as a great place to meet a stranger and have some summer fun. But to protect her still-bruised heart, fun comes with rules. There will be no sharing stories, no swapping numbers, and no real names. Just one night of uncomplicated fun.

When I’m offered the chance to leave New York to live in London for three months, I can’t pack my suitcase fast enough. As soon as I touch down, I’m obsessing over red telephone boxes, palaces, and all the black cabs. But my favorite place is the tube. It’s wall-to-wall hot British men in suits. 

My relationship with Hunter Delucia started backwards. We met at a wedding. Stealing glances at each other throughout the night, there was no denying an intense, mutual attraction. I caught the bouquet; he caught the garter. Hunter held me tightly while we danced and suggested we explore the chemistry sparking between us. His blunt, dirty mouth should’ve turned me off. But for some crazy reason, it had the opposite effect on me. We ended up back in my hotel room. The next morning, I headed home to New York leaving him behind in California with the wrong number.

I woke up five hours late after a reckless one-night stand with the sexiest, cockiest, and most arrogant man I’ve ever met. My top two clients for my PR company left to my number one competitor, my roommate "accidentally" bleached my favorite suit, and my favorite coffee shop was shut down for "health concerns". Still, none of those things dimmed my excitement for what was supposed to be the best four o’clock signing session of my career. Then that sexy, arrogant one-night stand stepped into my office with a familiar smirk and introduced himself as my new, cocky client....

Sweet, nerdy, lovable Keaton. She's my best friend and has been for years. Sure she likes numbers and math, and thinks doing other people's taxes is fun. And I like...none of that stuff. She reads novels I'll never understand, and yet we just click. There's no one I'd rather share breakfast burritos with or binge watch hours of Netflix with. She's my person. And so when she takes off her glasses and asks me to help her improve her skills in the bedroom, I barely have to think about it. Of course I'll help her. There's no one better for the job. But what happens when she's ready to take her new-found confidence and move on?

Meeting Beth Harrison in the first-class cabin of my flight from Chicago to London throws me for a loop, and everything I know about myself and women goes out the window. I'm usually good at reading people, situations, the markets. I know instantly if I can trust someone or if they're lying. But Beth is so contradictory and confounding, I don't know which way is up.