Copyright © 2020 by Elena Matthews
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.authorelenamatthews.com
Cover Designer: Najla Qamber Designs, www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Acknowledgments
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I smile around my bottle of beer as I watch how happy my twin brother, Nate, looks right now. We’re at our favorite bar, celebrating his engagement to his girlfriend—or I should say, fiancée. Ever since he met Remi, Nate’s been obsessed with her, so it’s no surprise he proposed to her after only five months of dating. Most people would say he’s rushing into it, but those people haven’t experienced near death in the way he did just a few months ago. In fact, we both almost died that day…at the exact same time. I know, freaky, right? But our bond is tight—to the point where if he died…I’d die with him. So, it makes sense we’d go through something traumatic like that together.
I’m watching them laugh with each other when my eyes snag on the brunette woman sitting with them, and my heart throbs at the mere sight of her.
Ally.
Fuck.
She is the woman of my dreams.
She’s so beautiful, it hurts…
So perfect, it isn’t even fair.
I’ve never been so hung up on a chick before…but then again, she’s unlike any other woman I’ve ever met before.
She hates me. Or at least, she pretends to hate me…but I see the way she looks at me. See the lust. She wants me. She just likes to deny herself of a good, quality man. And I’m not being pigheaded here, but I’m the full package. I’m tall, handsome, and ripped like a motherfucker. Also, I’m pretty charming, if I do say so myself. I tick all the damn boxes.
Instead, she’s currently sidled up to a guy who looks like his mom picked out his clothes for him this morning. I mean, come on, he’s wearing a sand-colored cardigan, for Christ’s sake. And he has a curtained hairstyle—bangs with a part, to be more specific. Have we time-traveled back to the ’90s? He doesn’t have a single fashion sense. And check this out: he’s a kindergarten teacher. I know we’ve all got to bring home the bacon. But could she have found a more boring person? And I totally said that in a Chandler Bing way.
I think she’s only dating him to piss me off. And the worst thing is, it’s working. Every time he touches her, I just want to rip his goddamn hands off her. I’m inwardly scowling right now as he wraps his arm around her waist, whispering something into her ear. But I have an amazing poker face. I’m a cop. I have to keep neutral most of the time. So, I act as if her being with another guy doesn’t bother me, that I don’t secretly want to beat the crap out of him.
“Earth to Logan. Are you even fucking listening?”
I grunt as a hand sucker-punches me in the stomach. Tearing my eyes from Ally, I glare at my older brother Jace.
“Asshole, what was that for?”
“I was telling you about the planet I might have found today.”
Oh, and another job more boring than a kindergarten teacher? An astrophysicist—aka stargazing. I mean, of all the scientific fields he could have gone in, he went with the most boring. And I’m not being a science snob here. I studied at MIT to become an engineer. I’m more of a lover of physical sciences, where I can get my hands dirty. What Jace does? Well, I’d be snoozing the entire day away.
“And that’s why I zoned out, bro. Plus”—I point to where Ally is standing—“I’m kind of distracted.”
He looks behind himself and immediately starts chuckling under his breath. “Damn, you still haven’t given up on her?”
“You’ve seen her, right? There is no giving up on a woman like that.”
“Didn’t you tell me she hated you?”
“She says she does, but I know it’s just a front. Deep down, she wants me.”
His eyes slide over to her, and he shakes his head with amusement. “If she wants you, then why is she pawing at the dude over there and not you, huh?”
I frown when I see her fingers crawling up his chest, but before Jace can see it, I shrug my shoulders. “She’s playing hard to get.”
“It seems she’s hard to get, but there ain’t no playing there. If I were you, I’d just move on to the next woman. I mean, look around you. There are about six chicks’ eyes on you right now.”
I don’t even spare a glance at anyone else. All I can see is Ally. I don’t know when it happened, but that girl has made me pussy-whipped, and she barely even knows I’m alive.
“Yeah, I could have other girls, but that would be too easy. Things were getting boring. The challenge excites me.”
Just then, my other brother Blake returns from the bar with three bottles of beer in his hands.
“What have I missed?” Blake asks as both Jace and I grab our beers.
I don’t miss Jace’s smirk as he flicks a glance toward me.
“Oh, just Logan chasing his tail with a girl who couldn’t be any less interested in him.”
Blake raises a brow as he throws back his beer. “You talking about Ally?”
I nod. Now, it’s Blake’s turn to laugh.
“Dude, you still got it bad for her? Shit. Take the
