“Give me a second chance, babe . . . and I’ll blow your mind.” Monroe doesn’t know why she answers the text that’s obviously meant for someone else. Or why she keeps answering. Maybe it’s because she’s all alone in a big city and in desperate need of a lifeline. Or maybe it’s because each exchange leaves her intrigued and more than a little turned on. Still, Monroe never would’ve snarked back if she’d known she was talking to the “Golden Boy” of the Dallas Knights.

I've been faithful long enough. I never claimed to be a good man, but I've always done what was expected of me. Find a nice girl. Get married. Have children. That was my duty as a good Christian man. And everything was going as planned when I met Briar. Beautiful. Charismatic. Sexy. But marriage is hard, and after seven years, I feel like I'm failing. Then, a figure from my past enters the picture.

With green eyes and an easy smile, Frank McCabe stole me away from the nightmares that awaited me at home. But the son of the Irish Mob would never be mine. I belonged to the Italians. And the moment my mother sold me to the head of the Italian Mafia, I became the one the people of Boston were warned about. The only person more feared than me in our city is the Irish Ghost. When I finally flee my marital prison with my sons and my sister in tow, I unwittingly run straight into the ghost of the Irishman who died in a fiery explosion years ago.

When you've been told your whole life that something is sinful, you have two options. Avoid it like the plague, like it has the power to destroy all that is good and pure. Or become as fixated upon it as Eve was upon that apple. I'm sick of the push-pull of terror and temptation. It's tearing me apart. I just want a bite of the apple. More than a bite. I want to devour it. Have its juices spill from my lips. And by apple, I, of course, mean sex.

Running away from home at 17 wasn't easy. Let's face it, though, nothing before or in the ten years since has ever been easy for me. And I'm doing okay—sorta. I just need to keep scraping by, living under the radar. Staying out of people's way, off people's minds. When a man walks through my open patio door, stepping boldly into my home and my life, I should be scared, frightened, terrified. I must be more broken than I realized because I'm none of those things. I'm intrigued—and I'm wondering if the way to take control of my life is by giving in to him.