A fake relationship has terms. That's the whole point. Terms feel safe — right up until you mean every word.
Dahlia Ashford runs Theta Pi like a small, flawless country, and she has never once let anyone see what it costs her. She has a gala to pull off, a future she's building with her own two hands — and a family wedding where showing up single means being quietly managed back into the life they've chosen for her, complete with the suitable man they keep seating beside her.
She needs a date who can survive her family. Convincingly.
Reid Callahan is Calder's new captain: blunt, dependable, the guy who holds everything together and would sooner break than be held up himself. He's been the one in charge since he was twelve, and he doesn't know how to be anything else.
So they make a deal. A contract. Pretend, with terms — because a transaction is the only way two people this controlled will ever let each other close.
Dahlia gets a date convincing enough to shut down every plan her family keeps making for her. Reid gets the one person sharp enough to see the cracks in his captain’s mask — and stubborn enough not to look away.
No feelings. Feelings aren’t in the agreement.
The trouble is that Reid is the first person to see straight through Dahlia's effortless act — and like the exhausted, unpolished woman underneath it. And Dahlia is the first person who looks at Reid like he's allowed to set something down.
Neither of them is performing anymore. Which was never part of the plan.
Best Laid Plays is a sweet, closed-door, fake-dating college hockey romance — Book Two of the Home Ice Sweethearts series. Two over-functioners, one very convincing fake relationship, a found family that sees right through both of them, and the slow, terrifying discovery that love is the one thing with no terms at all. Fully closed-door; happily ever after guaranteed.
Tropes: fake dating · fake relationship to real love · two control freaks · he's-the-captain / she-runs-the-room · forced proximity · family-of-origin wounds · caretaker hero · found family · closed-door / clean · reads as a standalone
Genre: Romance
Dahlia Ashford runs Theta Pi like a small, flawless country, and she has never once let anyone see what it costs her. She has a gala to pull off, a future she's building with her own two hands — and a family wedding where showing up single means being quietly managed back into the life they've chosen for her, complete with the suitable man they keep seating beside her.
She needs a date who can survive her family. Convincingly.
Reid Callahan is Calder's new captain: blunt, dependable, the guy who holds everything together and would sooner break than be held up himself. He's been the one in charge since he was twelve, and he doesn't know how to be anything else.
So they make a deal. A contract. Pretend, with terms — because a transaction is the only way two people this controlled will ever let each other close.
Dahlia gets a date convincing enough to shut down every plan her family keeps making for her. Reid gets the one person sharp enough to see the cracks in his captain’s mask — and stubborn enough not to look away.
No feelings. Feelings aren’t in the agreement.
The trouble is that Reid is the first person to see straight through Dahlia's effortless act — and like the exhausted, unpolished woman underneath it. And Dahlia is the first person who looks at Reid like he's allowed to set something down.
Neither of them is performing anymore. Which was never part of the plan.
Best Laid Plays is a sweet, closed-door, fake-dating college hockey romance — Book Two of the Home Ice Sweethearts series. Two over-functioners, one very convincing fake relationship, a found family that sees right through both of them, and the slow, terrifying discovery that love is the one thing with no terms at all. Fully closed-door; happily ever after guaranteed.
Tropes: fake dating · fake relationship to real love · two control freaks · he's-the-captain / she-runs-the-room · forced proximity · family-of-origin wounds · caretaker hero · found family · closed-door / clean · reads as a standalone
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Cassie Rivers's Best Laid Plays