Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Wed, 13 May 2026 18:54:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 Crossed Lines (Steel Legends #5) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.books2020.com/crossed-lines-steel-legends-5-read-online-helen-hardt Wed, 13 May 2026 18:54:31 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/crossed-lines-steel-legends-5-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Dark Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)

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He did the right thing.

Now he doesn’t know how to live with it.

Six months ago, Henry Simpson killed a man to save his sister and her fiancé.

His family sees a hero. He sees someone he doesn’t recognize.

Tabitha Haynes isn’t looking for complications. Medical school has taught her discipline and focus. But when she arrives for her best friend’s wedding and encounters Henry, her restraint snaps.

Their chemistry is instant and explosive. Henry wants her with a hunger that’s all heat and no promises. She meets him with an intensity that frightens her. But neither knows how to stop once the line is crossed.

Because some decisions are made in seconds. And some goodbyes arrive without warning

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Henry

I don’t regret it.

Not for a second.

People think there’s this moment—after you take a life—where you’re supposed to crumble. Fall to your knees. Question everything.

But I don’t.

I remember the look on his face, the way his mouth curled in that half smile like he thought he still had the upper hand.

He thought I wouldn’t do it.

He was wrong.

I pulled the trigger. Simple as that.

My sister was safe. That’s all that mattered.

I believe in what I did. I’d do it again. Hell, I’d do worse if I had to.

But the nightmares don’t know that.

They don’t care.

They come anyway. They rewind the scene, slow it down, and stretch it out until I wake up with my heart racing and my lungs screaming for air.

It’s not guilt. I know guilt.

This is something else. Something meaner. Something quieter.

It’s memory, maybe. Or the cost of doing the right thing.

Because there’s always a price.

And I’m paying it.

One

Tabitha

The road unwinds in front of me as I leave Boulder behind.

I’m a Colorado native, and I’ve made this trip many times, but each time I’m amazed at the splendor of it.

The world seems to shift the farther west I go.

Back in Boulder, everything’s neat and green. Cyclists in packs, electric vehicles driving past organic grocers and yoga studios. The gorgeous Flatirons watching over the town.

But out here…

It’s…wilder somehow.

The foothills give way to the majestic Rockies, and after that the sky opens wider. The air feels cleaner.

I pass through tiny towns. Silos, grain elevators, a few stray cattle grazing. A diner’s neon sign flashes, except it says iner because the D is burned out.

The Rockies shift too. They’re less pine covered, more jagged and exposed. The red and terra-cotta rocks hide figures and faces.

And then the light.

It’s different here. Thinner and sharper. I roll down the window, let the air hit my face. It smells like pine and dust and wildflowers. Nothing like Boulder’s patchouli-scented breeze.

I pass a rusted-out truck half buried in a field and a small herd of black cattle near a split-rail fence. No yoga pants or cold brew in sight.

It’s humbling.

Every time I come out this way, I feel like I’m stepping into another version of Colorado. Remnants of the old west. Of the gold rush. It’s different. More real.

And even though I’ve seen it before, it still catches in my throat.

Like the first time.

Every time.

Especially since I’m headed into the largest ranch in Colorado, Steel Acres.

You don’t forget a place like that. Not after the first time. Probably not after the tenth, either, though I’ve only been here once before. The land just keeps going. It’s not just big. It’s staggering.

I turn onto a narrow road framed by a wooden arch that reads Steel Acres Ranch in wrought-iron letters. Dust kicks up behind my car. The cattle guard rattles under my tires as I cross it, and then it’s just the land.

Fields stretch out in every direction, lush in some spots, dry and sun-cracked in others. Fences run across the hillsides, and I spot a few cattle grazing near a line of cottonwoods. A hawk circles in the distance.

Everything feels slower out here.

I’m not an envious person by nature, but in this moment, I covet Angie Simpson, my bestie at medical school. She grew up in this ethereal place, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. I grew up in a suburb of Denver, in a suburban house with a suburban middle-class family. I had a grassy yard with a swing set when I was younger, a volleyball net when I was older. My own room in a midsize two-story home, and a dog and a cat. The quintessential American family life.

Nice.

No complaints.

My parents stayed married, and my older sister, Samantha, and I fought like siblings do.

Basic normal.

But this?

Angie and her three siblings, along with myriad cousins, grew up in the most amazing place on earth.

I pass a row of outbuildings—barns, grain silos, a bunkhouse. A ranch hand rides horseback, guiding a few strays toward a far gate. A truck loaded with fencing supplies pulls off toward one of the pastures.

The main house appears, perched on a rise like it’s watching over the entirety of the property. It’s not ostentatious—at least not in the Boulder sense—but it’s commanding. Big wraparound porch, stone chimney, rust ceramic shingles. It’s gorgeous and huge.

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Advertisement Healed Heart (Steel Legends #4) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.books2020.com/healed-heart-steel-legends-4-read-online-helen-hardt Wed, 29 Oct 2025 22:15:03 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/healed-heart-steel-legends-4-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Suspense, Young Adult Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)

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They crossed a line.

And someone’s been watching.

Angie Simpson never meant to fall for her anatomy lab professor, Dr. Jason Lansing, but how could she not? He’s brilliant, magnetic, and their chemistry is off the charts. She’s ready to fly off to Europe with him, but fate has other plans. When Jason is accused of a violent crime, Angie begins to question everything she thought she knew.

Jason has already lost the people he loved most. Falling for Angie feels like a betrayal of his deceased wife—as well as a threat to his teaching career—but he can’t stay away. When he uncovers a chilling detail about his wife’s death—one that calls everything into question—he knows he’ll do whatever it takes to find the truth.

As trust unravels and secrets rise to the surface, Angie must choose whether to stay by Jason’s side.
As for Jason?

He wants answers. He wants vengeance.

And he’ll stop at nothing to get them

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Jason

My office looks like a storm went through it. Papers are scattered across my desk’s surface and onto the floor, some crumpled. My computer monitor is tilted, and drawers hang open, their contents dumped out. On the bookshelves, textbooks and journals have been pulled out and tossed aside. The locks on my filing cabinet have been forced open. I look inside to see that several file folders are ripped.

Someone in here was looking for something, and they were doing it quickly.

What the hell could I possibly be keeping in here that would be worth ransacking my office so crudely?

I close the door behind me, locking it. I walk over to my desk, looking through the papers. It’s mostly copies of old syllabi, lecture notes, even some old patient-related files from when I was still a surgeon. I couldn’t bear to part with them when I stopped cutting. I needed some sort of connection to the past.

Speaking of connections to the past…

A single envelope, slightly wrinkled, is strewn to the side carelessly by whoever searched my office.

To Jason…

Christ. It’s the note that Lindsay left behind the day she killed herself.

I’ve never read it.

The day she died, I stuffed it in my pocket. I gave it to one of the cops who eventually came over. He gave it one look and then returned it to me. It was pretty easy to tell what had happened.

That night, I came into the hospital and placed this envelope at the bottom of my lowest desk drawer. Far away from my everyday files and documents, but a small lifeline to the woman who was once the love of my life if I ever needed it.

I don’t know why—I really should be focusing on more important things right now—but I pull the note out of the envelope. Maybe now that I’m about to get some of my life back, I can handle the letter’s contents.

Then a knock on my door. “Dr. Lansing?”

“One second.” I look at the first words.

Jason, I’m sorry, but I can’t carry this weight any longer.

I feel a sting in my gut. But there’s another feeling, one I can’t quite place. Is it…wariness?

Another knock on my door, louder this time. “Dr. Lansing! Please open the door.”

“Be there in a minute,” I say.

Probably some student trying to get extra office hours, despite the fact that mine are by appointment only. I return to the note.

Losing her shattered me in ways I can’t put into words. I’ve tried to be strong—for you, for us—but the pain is relentless, and I can’t see a way forward.

* * *

Please know this isn’t your fault. You gave me everything, but I’ve lost myself in the void she left behind. I hope you find peace someday, even if I couldn’t.

I squint at the note. Something is wrong here. Lindsay did blame me. She could never say it out loud, but I could tell every moment of the rest of her short life that she harbored resentment toward me for the death of our daughter.

I’ll love you forever. See you on the other side, babe.

* * *

Lindsay

Three more sharp knocks. “Open the door now, Dr. Lansing.”

I whip my head back to the door. “Christ! I’ll be there in a second. I’m…changing.”

“You have thirty seconds, or I’ll knock the door down.”

Knock the door down? Definitely not a student, then. Maybe it’s Peter. He probably heard about how my meeting with Dr. Steel went, and he’s concerned I’ve gone off the deep end.

“I’m fine. I’ll be out in a sec.”

I look back at the letter, read over it again. Once, twice, three times.

And an anvil drops in my gut as I realize…

This isn’t my wife’s handwriting.

Chapter One

Angie

It’s been an hour since Jason came to my house, and I’ve been sitting on the floor on the other side of my front door, thinking about what to do. I should get to campus, but I can’t get myself to move.

He wants me to go away with him. To Switzerland. For God knows how long. Long enough for me to have to take a semester off school.

Aunt Melanie will disapprove, that’s for sure.

My whole family will.

But Jason’s right about one thing. I can come back. It’s not like I’m moving to Switzerland.

But…we haven’t even been on a date. All we’ve done is sleep together.

I laugh at that. There was no sleeping involved. And we’ve only done it in a bed once.

I rub at my forehead. Tillie scampers up to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, girl,” I say to her.

I can’t take Tillie overseas, either. I’d have to drive her out to the Western Slope, leave her with my family. I just adopted her. It would break my heart to leave her so soon.

But then there’s Jason.

The chemistry we share is undeniable. I’ve heard my own mom and dad talk about how they fell in love. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, too. The Steels in particular tend to fall hard and fall fast.

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Advertisement Broken Dream (Steel Legends #3) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.books2020.com/broken-dream-steel-legends-3-read-online-helen-hardt Thu, 25 Sep 2025 16:03:32 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/broken-dream-steel-legends-3-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, BDSM, Erotic Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)

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He’s a man hollowed by loss.

She’s his student…and the first spark he’s felt in years.

Angie Simpson has always been the quiet one in the “awesome foursome”—the youngest women in the Steel family. But now, miles from her ranching roots in Western Colorado, Angie is finally stepping into her own life. Medical school is grueling, but it’s her path. Her purpose.

Dr. Jason Lansing was once a rising star in the world of surgery, but a devastating car accident ended more than just his career. It took something far more precious. Now he’s exiled to teaching first-year anatomy lab, surrounded by eager students with two good hands who have everything ahead of them.

When beautiful Angie Simpson walks into his lab, she flinches at the cadaver table and reveals her interest in psychiatry—the one medical discipline Jason has no faith in. Still, Angie gets under his skin, and a stolen kiss in the lab awakens something inside him that he thought was gone forever.

But some boundaries aren’t meant to be crossed.

And some pasts refuse to stay buried

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

If I can’t have you, I’ll make sure no one else ever does.

She never heard me say the words out loud.

But they live inside my mind.

I watch.

And I wait.

Chapter One

Angie

Today’s the day.

Anatomy lab begins.

And I’m feeling a little…nauseated.

This is a huge part of a medical student’s education, and I knew it was coming. Still…

The room is chilly. It has to be, so the cadavers won’t rot.

Yeah, more nausea.

“How can you not be more excited?” Tabitha Haynes, a bubbly blonde and my assigned lab partner, asks me.

She and I met briefly at the mixer at the beginning of the first semester, but we haven’t been friendly. I haven’t been very friendly with any of my fellow students, to be honest. I’m kind of an introvert. I was popular in high school and college simply by being one of the “awesome foursome,” which consisted of my twin sister, Sage, and my cousins Brianna and Gina. We’re the youngest in our large family, so we’ve always hung out together. Sage, Bree, and Gina are all extroverts, so I tagged along, and they brought me out of my shell.

But I’m alone here in Boulder, Colorado, as I begin my second semester of my first year of medical school.

“I’m going into psychiatry,” I tell Tabitha. “The thought of dissecting an actual human being kind of makes me want to barf.”

My comment doesn’t seem to faze her. “I’m going into surgery, so this is huge for me,” she says.

I wrinkle my nose. “Don’t you ever think about the ethics of it? Like, what if we recognize him? Or her?”

“Now you’re just being gross,” Tabitha says. “Besides, we’ve only been in medical school for a couple of months so far. You may really enjoy this lab. You may decide you don’t want to focus on psychiatry after all.”

I shake my head. “My aunt is a renowned psychiatrist. She’s retired now, but she’s amazing. If I can be half the psychiatrist she is, I know I’ll contribute something wonderful to the world.”

Tabitha rolls her eyes at me. “Dr. Melanie Carmichael Steel. We all know who you are, Angie.”

Yeah, everyone knows I’m a member of the Steel family. I may not carry their last name, but my mother, Marjorie Steel Simpson, is sister—and the only female sibling—to the three Steel brothers.

“I don’t flaunt my family ties,” I say.

“Did I say you did?” She purses her lips. “There’s been talk, of course. I’m not saying I’ve been talking, but there’s been talk.”

I should be surprised, but I’m not. There’s always talk.

“About what?” I ask.

“About you and your hefty Steel trust fund. About why you’re even bothering with medical school when you have enough money to last your entire lifetime and more.”

“God.” I let out a huff. “I’m so sick of this kind of shit. I got it all through college, too. Maybe I should’ve gone to medical school somewhere on the East Coast where no one has ever heard of the Steels.”

“Calm down,” Tabitha says. “I haven’t been talking. That I promise you. Frankly, I think anyone who has the drive and perseverance to get into medical school—which is not easy, as you know—and the desire to heal should be here.”

I nod. “I have that. I’ve learned so much from my aunt over the years. I want to help people the way she does.”

“Then you totally should.” She crosses her arms. “But I’m just saying, don’t count out surgery, because once we cut into this cadaver, you may find you like it.”

I force a smile at Tabitha. Maybe we could be friends. She’s cute, with her blond hair and light-brown eyes. She’s half a head shorter than I am, but I come from tall stock.

“So what should we name him?” Tabitha asks, looking down at our cadaver covered with a thick white sheet.

I drop my jaw. “You want to name the dead guy? I’m still on ‘what if we recognize him?’”

She smirks. “Are you kidding me? These bodies have been soaking in formaldehyde for years. Have you had anyone you know die and leave their body to science in that time?”

Ugh. I don’t want to think about that. “We don’t know whether we’re going to get a male or female,” I say.

“So we choose an androgynous name, then. Like Jordan or Morgan.”

Is she kidding me? “Don’t you think we should see what he or she looks like first?”

God. Soon we’ll have to look at it.

She lets out a laugh. “You are too funny! You don’t want to do any of this, but you want to wait until we see the cadaver before we give it a name?”

I grimace. “Hey, if I had it my way, there would be no name. There would be no anatomy lab.”

“Then why didn’t you just pursue a doctorate in psychology? Why bother with med school at all?”

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Advertisement I Am Salvation (Steel Legends #2) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.books2020.com/i-am-salvation-steel-legends-2-read-online-helen-hardt Wed, 12 Feb 2025 07:22:43 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/i-am-salvation-steel-legends-2-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Drama Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 78631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >78

He’s not looking for salvation. She’s not looking for love.

Dragon Locke is a haunted man. Every day is a relentless battle against the demons of his past. A recovering addict, he wears the scars of a history so brutal, he’s convinced it will destroy anyone who dares to get too close.

Diana Steel is everything Dragon doesn’t deserve. She’s strong and beautiful, and the harder he falls for her, the more he fights to push her away. She deserves a life untouched by his sin, and he’s sworn he won’t subject her to that.

When pieces of his history resurface, dangling the promise of something he lost long ago, Dragon knows he must confront what he’s spent years running from. Diana, freshly wounded by the loss of her own dreams, offers to accompany him. He knows it’s reckless, but he can’t deny her…or the solace she represents.

The search spirals into a journey filled with dark secrets. As danger closes in, Dragon must decide if love can truly be his salvation or if, in the end, he will lose everything

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Dragon

I wake up, still smelling Diana’s pussy on my face.

I take a few moments to inhale, appreciate it, infuse it into my body.

Because this day is going to be difficult.

First thing I need to do, before I go to the music store and get my schedule for percussion lessons, is call Alayna the PI and tell her I need her to back off on the investigation into Griffin.

But I have something else for her. Something the Steels may not pay for.

I need her to find my parents.

But before I ask her to do that, I grab my phone and pull up all my social media accounts.

I have dummy accounts on each one. I never post, and no one knows it’s me. But it gives me the ability to search the sites.

Felix and Stefania Locke.

I can’t find them anywhere.

On Facebook, Instagram, even LinkedIn. My father was a plumber. He’d be about fifty-five years old now, still of working age. Surely he should have a LinkedIn.

But nothing.

My mother Stefania—he called her Stevie—was a homemaker. She stayed home with Griffin and me.

She sold some kind of cosmetics on the side. Mary Kay or Avon or something like that. I can’t remember which.

If I could remember the name of the company she worked for, I could search for her that way, but when I put in Stefania Locke with the names I remember, I get nothing.

This was a million years ago anyway. My mother was young and beautiful, so she sold cosmetics easily. Women thought they could look like her, so they bought it in droves.

But I have no idea what she looks like now. After locking up one child and then losing another, she can’t possibly still be beautiful. Inner turmoil tends to surface after a while.

I can’t help but wonder… Do they ever think about me?

Do they ever regret their decision?

Once Griffin disappeared for real, why didn’t they come for me? At that point, they should’ve known I wasn’t guilty of what they thought I’d done.

After a quick shower, I throw on some jeans and a black Dragonlock T-shirt. God, I miss the band. When they got back from the European tour last spring, we didn’t have any gigs for a while because Jesse and Rory were so busy with wedding plans.

I rejoined the band after leaving rehab, and we practiced sometimes, played a few local concerts, but nothing huge that paid a lot. Most of what I made went to pay off bills I had accumulated during rehab. Then we played at the big quadruple wedding at the Steel Ranch in Snow Creek.

Jesse and Rory took off on their honeymoons, and I haven’t touched my drums since.

I walk to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. The pot is empty, and a stainless-steel thing sits in the sink.

A French press. I’ve never used one before, so I start a pot of coffee in the regular drip pot.

Then I look in the refrigerator. I grab a couple of slices of bread and shove them in the toaster.

I’m not very hungry anyway.

Once my toast is ready, I butter it and snarf it down with some coffee. Then I grab my phone, sit down at the small table, and call Alayna.

“Talk to me,” she says into the phone.

“Alayna, it’s Dragon Locke.”

“Hey, Dragon, you were on my list to call today.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, just to give you an update. I haven’t got a lock on that first phone number, and⁠—”

“There’s a problem,” I say. “I got another call last night from a different number. They told me I need to call you off or they couldn’t guarantee my sister’s safety.”

She doesn’t speak for a moment, until⁠—

“All right. Send me that number. But I should ask what you want to do.”

“I’m torn,” I say. “On the one hand, this could all be a big ruse. Someone’s fucking with me. But on the other hand…”

“Your sister could actually be alive.”

“Yeah.”

She pauses. “I can be discreet.”

“You weren’t discreet enough because they figured out someone’s looking.”

“They couldn’t know. I use the top technology in the business. No one can trace what I’ve been doing. Frankly, Dragon, I think they’re trying to con you.”

“They said to call her off. They know you’re a woman.”

“Are you saying it’s less likely that a woman would be doing this work?”

I rub my forehead. “Of course not. But if I were some derelict…”

“Dragon, it’s all right. I understand where you’re coming from. There are typically more men in my line of work. If this guy was making this up and going with the odds, he’d probably have referred to me with male pronouns. I still am not sure that’s enough to warrant throwing this investigation. He could still be trying to mess with you. But I’ll leave the decision to you. Do you want to keep investigating?”

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Advertisement I Am Sin (Steel Legends #1) Read Online Helen Hardt http://www.books2020.com/i-am-sin-steel-legends-1-read-online-helen-hardt Wed, 25 Dec 2024 21:50:10 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/i-am-sin-steel-legends-1-read-online-helen-hardt Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Forbidden, Suspense Authors: Helen Hardt Series: Steel Legends Series by Helen Hardt
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Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 78142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >77

He is sin.
She doesn’t care.
Diana Steel has it all—a luxurious Denver penthouse, a limitless trust fund, and the job of her dreams at one of the city’s top architecture firms. Housing brooding Dragon Locke isn’t a priority, but when her sister asks, Diana relents.

Dragon knows what it means to fight for survival. Abandoned at eight and raised in the system, he’s been hardened by life’s brutal lessons. Addiction nearly destroyed him, and after a disastrous fall during his band’s European tour, he’s clawing his way back. Fresh out of rehab, he’s determined to rebuild on his own terms.

Diana’s offer of a place to stay should be the lifeline Dragon needs, but he hates charity, especially from someone like her. Yet when he steps into her world, the undeniable chemistry between them ignites something neither can control.
But Dragon is a man scarred by his past, with secrets so dark they threaten to consume him. He’s shared only fragments with his therapist and his closest friend—the rest he’s vowed to take to his grave. As Diana draws closer, she risks getting burned by the firestorm of pain and passion inside him. And Dragon isn’t sure he can let her in without dragging her into the depths of hell.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Dragon

For the first nine years of my life, there was light. There was love. There was kindness.

And then, in the course of one evening, that light was eclipsed forever.

Since then, I’ve lived in a chasm of darkness.

It hasn’t been all bad. Over the years, I’ve been able to escape some of the obscurity. I’ve learned to live my life in the dusk. I found my way to Jesse Pike, a man who not only saw the darkness in me but embraced it. He needed a drummer. I was a drummer. His band had no name. He liked my name, so he used it for the band.

But of course, I went and fucked that up.

Because of the darkness. The black cloud that follows me everywhere I go, perpetually wrapping me in a fog of rain and hail.

That night, the shadows overtook me. I chose to combat it with more darkness. A quick hit of black tar. I threw years of sobriety down the toilet, all because I couldn’t control the dark Dragon within me.

Because I am sin. I am the purest entity of evil. I must be.

Why else would my parents⁠—?

No. I can’t think about that. Thinking like that is what caused my relapse.

But it’s true.

The Dragon was not born into it, but he will live his life in his own black smoke.

And that’s where he’ll die, too.

Chapter One

Diana

I let out an exasperated sigh. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea, Brianna.”

“I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t so important to Jesse and me,” my younger sister, newly married to the man of her dreams—a rising rock star, no less—pleads. “He wants to be close to his rehab place in case he relapses.”

I bite my lip. “He was fine at your wedding. I didn’t see him take a drink at all, and he stood there solidly as Jesse’s best man.”

“Yes, exactly. He wants to stay fine.” Brianna sighs. “There won’t be any band business for the next several months, and he wants to be in Denver, close to his therapist and to the facility.”

I put the phone on speaker and set it on the counter. I rub both sides of my forehead, trying to think this through. I’m not one to turn down a person in need, but this is a lot to ask of anyone. House a recovering addict? A guy I hardly know? Sure, he’s the drummer for my brother-in-law’s band, but he and I have barely said ten words to each other.

Plus, I just moved into my plush penthouse here in downtown Denver. I’m about to begin the job of my dreams. Call me selfish, but I kind of want to focus on me at the moment.

“I’ll think about it. That’s all I’ll say.”

“Think fast, will you? He’s arriving in Denver tomorrow.”

I let out a huff as I say goodbye to my sister and end the call.

Today is Friday, and I begin as an associate architect with Lund & Lopez here in Denver on Monday. I completed an internship at a different firm, and they made me an offer, but the two Ls came in a little bit higher.

But that’s not the reason I went with L & L. I don’t need the money. I have a sizable trust fund from my rich family. I went with L & L because they just got a huge contract to build a new eco-resort on top of one of the highest peaks in the Rockies. It’s a project like no other, and I’m hoping I’ll get to be involved.

To win a spot on that team, I’ll have to show the higher-ups in the firm that I’m someone serious about my architecture career who’s ready to put in the time on this amazing project. That I’m not just some heiress trying to prove a point.

I need to be focused.

Letting a recovering addict live in my penthouse isn’t a good way to stay focused.

I look around. Do I even have the room?

Of course I do. I have three bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms.

But I only have one kitchen, one common area. One balcony with a view of the Rocky Mountains to the west.

I’ve lived alone since I was twenty-one. I’m nearly twenty-six now, and the thought of taking a roommate—especially one with so much baggage—kind of makes me want to hurl.

Brianna and Jesse offered to pay rent for him. I don’t need the extra income, of course, so I said no. He can pay his own damned rent.

His name is Dragon.

Yes, that’s really his name. Dragon Locke. He’s the drummer for Jesse’s rock band, Dragonlock. They liked his name so much they named the band after him.

I’ve spoken to him a few times at gatherings back home at my family’s ranch on the western slope of Colorado. Usually just small talk. The weather, the wedding decor, what the band’s working on.

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