Power Play My Heart by Zee Irwin

Getting drunk at a fundraiser bachelor auction and bidding way too much on a date with a sports god—one whose life I ruined in the past—isn’t the way I thought I’d spend Valentine’s Day. But there he is, Kris Kringer, nicknamed the Hockey Heartbreaker, standing before me and worth every penny to look at.

When I win, he’s shocked, but I tell him I don’t really need the date, that I just wanted to make amends with him and donate to a good cause. Only it turns out we now live in the same building. Despite our love-to-hate for each other, one drunken night later, I spill the beans, crying on his shoulder at how I’m a jilted girlfriend who didn’t have a clue my ex intended to marry another woman, my cousin, the entire time we were together. And how my family is forcing me to watch the nuptials at their extravagant wedding.

Oh, but Kris is more than a pretty face, perhaps the smartest man ever when he suggests he would prove beneficial as my fake wedding date to help me get through this. After all, I paid for a night with him. I might as well take advantage and make the ex jealous. I question why he’d help me now, given our past, but go with it anyway.

When his plan works, I don’t even care about my ex anymore, especially when Kris forgives me and blesses me with his best smoldering stare that melts my ice. Then when a snowstorm hits on the way home after the wedding, forcing us to share a cabin with only one bed, a cozy fire, a gift basket full of cheap cured meats, and naughty toys, it proves the Valentine surprise neither of us are expecting.

Will this night open our eyes and pave the way to true love, or will our past come to haunt us once again? If only we could turn our hate into love, we might find something good to hold on to once and for all.