As a professional matchmaker, my biggest job this holiday season should be simple: find a date for the sexy single dad hockey player—aka my brother’s best friend—for his team’s fancy Christmas Eve gala. Sure Rowan’s hot as a crackling fire and spicier than a gingerbread man, but he hasn’t just sworn off romance. The Christmas hater has made a bet that I can’t find him a holidate.

Rule number one for having a one-night stand: Don’t fall for the girl. After a lengthy dating slump, I finally met someone who sparked my interest. Well, first the sparks flew when we argued. Later in the evening those sparks ignited into something more. I was drawn to Devyn, in a way I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Needless to say, I was disappointed when she abruptly left after our amazing night together. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. But she hadn’t even given me her number. In a city with eight-million people, I figured I’d never see Devyn again.

A forbidden romance with my brother’s hockey teammate wasn’t on my to-do list when I moved across the country… Neither was getting locked out of a friend’s place wearing next to nothing. Or spending the night with the sexy stranger who rescues me. But I’m trying to get out of my comfort zone so getting out of the rest of my clothes with him seems like a good way to start. In the morning, I learn the filthy-mouthed man with the talented hands is not only the hotshot new hockey player on my brother’s team: he’s also–wait for it–my brand new roommate.

Our first kiss was a lie. Our second was a mistake. And the night we spent tangled up in each other? Hot as hell, but a complete disaster.

The feud between Weston Lockwood and me started at the altar. Only neither of us attended the wedding, and the nuptials happened decades before either of us was born. Our grandfathers had been best friends and business partners, at least up until my grandfather’s wedding day - when his bride-to-be blurted out she couldn’t marry him because she was also in love with Weston‘s grandfather.

It all started with an unexpected phone call. Two years after my fiancé passed away in an accident, his father died suddenly, leaving Brad’s adult special-needs brother with no one to care for him. The next thing I knew, I was on a cross-country drive to New Hampshire where I’d be moving in to look after Scottie until I could get him into a group home. The last thing I ever expected? I wouldn’t be taking care of him alone.

Love isn't on my mind when I sign up for the yearly Sinners Retreat, but a chance meeting at the airport changes everything. We click right away, and my bond with Kindra only deepens when we discover our mutual love for the most macabre hobbies. But then she brings up her brother's unsolved murder and her real reason for being here—to find his killer. That's when my past finally catches up with me, and I'm faced with an impossible choice.

Hockey star Max Yearwood was everything I needed at the time - fun, sexy, up for anything, and only around for a few months, since he’d signed with a new team 3,000 miles away. Max proposed we spend the summer helping me forget my ex. It sounded like a good plan. Things couldn’t get too serious when we had an expiration date. Right? Though, you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

What does one do when they completely blow an interview? If you're me, you pick up a one-night stand with the most gorgeous man you've ever seen.. That's right, after a lousy interview that could have changed everything for me, I headed over to the local small town bar to sulk when the one man I shouldn't want walked in. And when my friend convinced me to take him back to my hotel room, I didn't think about it, I just did it . . . well, I did him.

This isn’t a story about a love triangle. There is no triangle involved. This isn’t a story about an accidental pregnancy. Although having a baby with her...I would. This isn’t a story about lies and deception, even though at times I’ve lied to myself. No, this is my story. A story about sacrifice. A story about a man who fell in love with the wrong girl. A story I wish I never had to tell. I learned a long damn time ago, the only way to achieve my dreams was to avoid distractions - at any cost.