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On the day I decide to divorce Evan Beckett, I still make lunch and deliver it to him in person. After he takes a sip out of the soup, he widens his eyes in surprise. "The soup's pretty decent! I'll have it again tomorrow!" I nod in response. "Sure thing. I'll teach the housekeeper how to cook it later." That's when Evan lifts his head to look at me. "You got something going on tomorrow?" "Let's get a divorce, Evan." I sound very calm; so calm that everyone, including Evan, thinks that I'm throwing another tantrum. But what they don't know is that I'll be traveling to the ends of the earth with a research team, where we'll be based in for eternity, in 12 hours.

The day my parents divorced, I turned my back on the mother who loved me and clung desperately to my cheating father. In my previous life, I chose my mother without hesitation. Because the family never accepted me, she spent the rest of her life suffering for my sake, enduring endless scorn and hardship. This time, as I looked into her heartbroken eyes, I walked away without a backward glance. Five years later, I was scraping by at a seafood market, spending my days gutting fish amid the stench of saltwater and blood. Just as I expertly sliced open a fish's belly, my mother appeared. Her heels clicked across the damp floor as she navigated around puddles left by melting ice and approached me. She covered her nose in disgust, looked me up and down in my stained, shabby clothes, and let out a cold laugh. "No matter how hard you wash, you still reek of fish. This is the life you chose when you picked him over me. “The Cooper family's notorious young heir is about to form an alliance with our family through marriage. “As long as you kneel and beg me, I'll give you a chance to live a better life. What do you think? “You know I always mean what I say.” The contempt in her voice was unmistakable. I swallowed the metallic taste rising in my throat, flashed a carefree grin, and stepped closer. “Not only am I not kneeling, but you’ll have to kiss me first if you want me to go.” Just one kiss would be enough to get me through the last month of my life.

On June nineteenth—the day my boyfriend and I had planned to get our marriage license—he vanished without a word. It wasn't until that night that I stumbled across a post on his social media. He'd forgotten to block me from seeing it. "From twenty to twenty-eight, our youth: signed, sealed, delivered." The photo attached showed two marriage certificates. In the wedding picture beside it, a girl I didn't recognize leaned into his shoulder, beaming. Furious, I opened the comments to demand an explanation, and found my best friend's message waiting there instead. [Congratulations to the old flames who finally found their way back to each other!] My chest went tight. My hands shook as I called her. After a long silence, she finally told me the truth. "Yeah. They've been together for eight years. Everyone already knew. We didn't hide it to hurt you. We were just scared you'd make a scene. "Alice and Chase were always the better match. It wasn't easy for them to get to where they are today. Why make things hard on another woman? Just be the bigger person." The tears that fell were cold as ice, but where they landed, they burned straight through me. Twelve years together, and for eight of them, Chase Peterson had loved someone else. Everyone had known. They'd just all agreed to keep it from me.

Jace Steadman. My best friend’s father. Older. Controlled. Quiet in a way that makes my pulse stutter. A man who never looks twice at anyone… Except this time, he looked at me. One glance at my ruined makeup and shaking breath, and suddenly he felt too close. Too warm. Too dangerous. His voice was gentle when everyone else had been cruel. And when he sat beside me beneath the glow of the fire, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: Wanted. Not sweetly. Not politely. But with a quiet, restrained hunger that made my heart slam against my ribs. To distract me from the pain—and to stop himself from touching me—we made a game of it: Twelve days. Twelve dares. No rules… except the ones we couldn’t stop breaking. A whispered challenge in the dark became a dare. A dare became a touch that lingered too long. A touch became a pull neither of us knew how to resist. He shouldn’t crave me. I shouldn’t crave him back. But the more we tried to stay respectable, the more our restraint fell apart. The lodge turned into a minefield of temptation—Christmas lights, stolen glances, near-kisses that burned hotter than the fire. Jace wasn’t just a man I wanted. He became the man I couldn’t stop fighting—and falling—for. If anyone finds out, my life falls apart. His reputation shatters. Everything explodes. But desire doesn’t care about consequences. And this Christmas, I’m done being careful. Done being quiet. Done pretending I don’t want the man who looks at me like I’m the first real taste of life he’s had in years. Twelve days. Twelve dares. One forbidden man I can’t walk away from… even if he ruins me.

NOEL DIDN’T JUST KISS ME, HE TRAPPED ME. AND AS I STARE AT THE FILE, I REALIZE THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS JUST BECAME A COUNTDOWN TO MY OWN PERSONAL DISASTER. When Anahera Kallio agreed to take on a high-profile client during the holidays, she never expected it to be Noel Rautio—the scorching-hot hockey star who is her brother’s sworn enemy on the ice. One stolen kiss under the mistletoe was bad enough, but now he’s got her cornered with a secret recording and a devilish ultimatum: stick with his therapy sessions or watch her career go up in flames. As the 12 Days of Christmas tick by, every heated session pulls them deeper into forbidden territory. Noel’s walls are cracking, Anahera’s resolve is melting, and the line between professional and passionate blurs into chaos. But with loyalties to her brother, hidden scandals and a ticking clock threatening to expose everything, this holiday fling could shatter more than just the ice. Unless they rewrite the rules and turn disaster into desire. Will Anahera escape Noel’s trap…or surrender to the ultimate holiday score?

I had just found out I was a perfect match and was preparing to donate a kidney to my wife’s foster brother. That night, he left his iPad in the living room, and the screen lit up with a chat history between him and a doctor. “Doctor Evans, whatever you do, don’t tell my brother-in-law,” the message read. “If his kidney is removed, his hidden heart condition will flare up, and he won’t last three months.” The next day, I decisively canceled the donation. My wife was furious, calling me cold-blooded and forcing me to sign a divorce agreement that left me with absolutely nothing. A day later, I overheard his smug laughter from outside his hospital room. “He’s so stupid,” Boyd said. “I just photoshopped a fake chat log, and he actually believed he was sick. Now, we’ve stolen his luxury penthouse, and we can finally be together out in the open.” My wife kissed him. “Good boy. I’ll buy you a better kidney on the black market later.” Standing outside the door, I sneered. Of course, I knew the record was fake. After all, I had just reincarnated from the future. In half a month, a zombie apocalypse would strike, and this toxic pair of secret lovers would not only steal my medicine but also throw me to the undead. This time, with only three days left before the city is overrun by zombies, I want to see something. I want to see exactly how many days a sick bastard without a kidney transplant and a heartless woman without any survival supplies can last inside my luxury penthouse.