My father was always a gambling man. Unfortunately, he never could pick winners. When the wolves closed in, he chose himself, like always. He traded his freedom... for mine. He forced me to marry. Now Dante Bellanti owns my body. I'm just another possession for a man who already has too much. So I won't let him have my heart. But you know what they say about gambling.

I've been to a million parties with my crush, but he's never acted on it til now. Ford Malone could have any woman in Chicago, so why fake a relationship with me? The world knows him as the heir to a real estate fortune, but to me he'll always be my best friend, the man who saved me from my bullies as a boy. I'm as surprised as anyone when he announces our engagement, but I'll play along. Nothing has to change except the way we behave—the way we touch—in public. But his private touches change everything. Soon the crush I've hidden for so long is threatening to swallow me whole.

On my 18th birthday, my father, the senator, gives me the gift he thinks every little girl dreams of. The man of my dreams, and the wedding to match. Stefan Zoric is heir to an elite worldwide modeling agency. Practically a prince. My arrangement is simple, as far as sham marriages go. I give him my virginity, behave as the perfect wife, and he'll pay for the college degree my father found irrelevant. But I don't want to be the perfect wife. I want him to want me the way I want him.

I caught her staring at me from across the quad, eyes fixed on the football jersey stretched across my wide chest. And if I flexed my muscles, showing off the strength of a defensive tackle, it was just to see her blush. And then she did, and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her wide eyes. The freckles on her cheeks. I needed to know her. The girl who scampered away every time we bumped into each other—by accident and by design.

Holt Sebastian is royalty in our world. As CEO of the Sebastian News Corp, he’s the man with all the power. The man who decides if I’ll always just be a local television anchor or if I’ll be the rising star of my own show.