Gillian Archer
Torque
A Bad Boy Next Door Romance
First published by Gillian Archer 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Gillian Archer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise withoutwritten permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distributeit by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it arethe work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localitiesis entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Reluctantly Royal by Gillian Archer copyright © 2018 by Gillian Archer
This book contains an excerpt from Reluctantly Royal by Gillian Archer. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the edition.
Cover design: Robin Harper, Wicked by Design
Cover photograph: KDdesignphoto via Shutterstock
Edited by Dayna Hart
Proofread by Dawn Mangum
gillianarcher.com
First edition
ISBN: 9781393146469
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Contents
Torque: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance (Burns Brothers #4)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also By Gillian Archer
Bio
In case you missed it, read on for an excerpt of
Reluctantly Royal Chapter 1
Torque: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance (Burns Brothers #4)
She’s his little sister’s best friend—totally off limits. But then again, this tattooed bad boy has never followed the rules.
Maddie:
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with Nathan Burns. We met when I was six and twenty years later, I love him still. But he’ll never see me as anything other than his little sister’s best friend—a pest—if he even thinks of me that much. I’ve got to face facts. He’s not into me. He’ll never be into me.
It’s beyond time to move on.
Nathan:
I swear I blinked and my little sister’s best friend—a woman who’s about as off-limits as it can get—grew up. And she’s hot as hell. When did that happen? It doesn’t help that she’s everywhere now—at our weekly family dinner nights, sleeping on my brother’s couch next door, lying out in our complex’s swimming pool in a barely-there bikini. And who are these losers hanging around her lately? None of them are worthy of the woman she’s become. Then again, neither am I.
And when I stumble across her profile on a hook up app, all bets are off.
A standalone book in the Burns Brothers series
Chapter One
Madison Roberts
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with Nathan Burns.
I met him when we moved into a house down the street from his family when I was six, and it was love at first sight. He was doing wheelies on his bicycle in the middle of the street like a bad boy. But then, he was eleven at the time. So much older and more experienced than me.
Twenty years later, not a lot had changed.
I was still in love with Nathan Burns. He was still a bad boy who had seen and done more than me.
Not that he saw me.
Case in point, we were all at his Aunt Wendy’s house for their weekly dinner tonight—I’d been included since I’d been best friends with his sister, Sabrina, for forever—and Nathan hadn’t spoken more than ten words to me. He was still hounding Sabrina.
“It’s too soon for you to come back.” Nathan shook his head, a muscle in his jaw flexing as he was no doubt biting back whatever he really wanted to say. “You were just in a fire, Sabby. They carried you out on a fucking stretcher. You were hospitalized.”
Then again, maybe he wasn’t biting any words back.
Sighing, I tried not to be obvious and stare at him with puppy eyes.
At least, that was what Sabrina had called them once.
I tore my eyes away from Nathan’s chiseled features and chased a pea around my plate with my fork.
“That was almost a month ago, Nate.” Sabrina didn’t look the least bit intimidated by Nathan’s overbearing act. But she was used to it; since Wendy had raised all of them, they were more siblings than cousins. “I’m off oxygen. I got the all-clear from my doctor last week. I’m coming back to work.”
Nathan grunted. He turned his attention to Logan, Sabrina’s boyfriend, sitting close to her side. “You got anything to say about this?”
Logan raised his eyebrows and exchanged a look with Sabrina. Then he slowly shook his head. “Nope.”
That was it. Logan bent his head over his plate and resumed shoveling Wendy’s delicious meal into his face. Even though they’d both gone through a near death experience, I envied the hell out of them. My bestie had found the guy she could lean on. Even though she was capable of standing on her own two feet.
Nathan stared at Logan in amazement. It had to be killing Nathan that no one was agreeing with him. He huffed a sigh and after a moment shot Sabrina a smug look as he pointed his fork at her. “What about the fact that you don’t even want to work there? You quit, remember?”
Sabrina shrugged. “And I took it back the next day, Nate. I told you all, it takes a bit of time to get all my qualifications together to apply for veterinarian school. I’ll let you know when I have
