By the Bay Series

Best friend rule number one: Never want the guy’s sister. Oops.

One-night stand rule number one: Always check the condom’s expiry date.

Fake boyfriend rule number one: Never fall for your fake girlfriend. Oops. I run Aphrodite’s Boutique, a store that specializes in all things love-related. A store that I adore with all my heart, and which is at risk of being shut down and replaced with a condo development. To save it, all I have to do is pretend to be Travis Hamilton’s girlfriend. Sounds simple enough. Right?

Kissing-under-the-mistletoe rule number one: Never kiss your ex-fiancée. Oops. My plans for the Christmas break include: drive to Lake Tahoe, learn to ski, enjoy hot, earth-shattering sex (and end my sex drought), and meet my "forever love" under the mistletoe. Right. The last one was my friend’s prediction, but you never know. What I don’t count on is a flat tire, a major blizzard, and for Liam Quade, my ex-fiancé and the man who broke my heart 10 years ago, to come to my rescue.

She’s pregnant with another man’s baby. He’s now the father to his little niece. A sexy rom com with all the feels! My software company has been my number one, two, and three priorities. But that all changes when I suddenly become the guardian of my three-year-old niece. Now my world has turned topsy-turvy with princesses and little-girl tea parties. When Hannah Morrell needs a place to stay after the pipes in her apartment burst, I invite her to move in with my niece and me. Hannah is a pediatric nurse, and given my situation, who could ask for a better roommate. Sounds easy.

A chance encounter with a masked stranger at a charity ball led to an incredible kiss and a night of hot sex. The kiss was my goal for that night, a baby step forward after my husband’s death a year ago. The hot sex? Not so much. You know what else hadn’t been my goal? To be knocked up by a man whose identity is a mystery to me.

As the future CEO of my grandmother’s fashion empire, I’m not supposed to want to design a line of fancy dresses for girls with special needs. But when I pull out all the stops and present my vision to my grandmother, she agrees to let me try on one very questionable condition. The condition? I have to complete every item on the bucket list I wrote in college.