Carrie Aarons

When my best friend died of cancer just before her eighteenth birthday, she left her coveted bucket list to me. So, it falls on me to finish it for her, to honor her memory. In the next year, it's my mission to: dye my hair, have sex, camp out in a tent, go bungee jumping, and get revenge on Lincoln Kolb. Most are doable, some terrify me, and then there is the last item on the list. When the raven-haired football god dumped my best friend during senior year of high school, she was devastated. The jerk with charm for days found out she was sick, and betrayed her in the worst way possible. But he doesn't know me, I went to school a town over. Now, to fulfill my promise, I'm the newest freshman on the campus where he is the big man. If there is one thing, aside from cheap beer, that a jock can't pass up, it's a shiny new girl. So when I catch his eye, play hard to get, and then fall into his bed, I know my scheme is working to perfection. But what Lincoln can't see coming is the beatdown I have planned for his ice-cold heart. Unfortunately, what I never saw coming was the one he had planned for mine. Contains mature themes.

This summer was supposed to be spent lounging on the beach, madly in love with my boyfriend. Until he decided to move to Singapore, and break up with me an hour before his plane left. Now I’m stuck in a Hamptons house share with six of his closest pals, including his best friend … who despises me. Since the moment Smith Redfield laid eyes on me, he’s hated my guts. I’m serious, I think the raven-haired restaurateur gets physically sick just being in my presence. And he’s never been shy about hiding that fact. There was the time he cackled when I landed face first in a pile of Manhattan trash bags. Or the night I tried to throw my ex-boyfriend a surprise party, and Smith had strippers crash the bash. Or maybe it was New Year's Eve, when he got in my face and called me a sheltered goody two-shoes who wouldn’t know passion if it smacked me in the lips. He’s rooming right next door for the summer months, and I don’t think more animosity could exist than in the hallway of our vacation rental. As if I wasn’t already sporting a bruised ego and broken heart from the way his best friend left me. But the more midnight run-ins we have, the more I can’t help but think about the way his mouth would feel against mine. With each heavy-eyed glance over the dinner table, I’m starting to wonder if the damaged alpha male doesn’t harbor more than just loathing towards me. After all, they say hate is the closest emotion to love. And with the way we’re skating that thin line, it’s bound to burn this whole house down.