He's got everything she ever wanted. She's got everything he's always needed. But when it comes to giving in to love, he's going to give her a run for her money.
LILA
A music contract. It's all I've ever wanted. And when my best friend and I hear that Olivia Johns and Connor Wheating—country's newest It couple—are on tour and taking auditions, we jump at the chance.
When we arrive and have a run-in with an agent—and she offers me a contract on the spot!—I jump again.
Then I find out there's a catch.
I have to pretend to date one of the guys on the tour. Help to rehabilitate his (very, very bad) reputation. Hold his hand, smile for the cameras. The usual. And that doesn't sound like it should be hard.
Until I find out that rock star is Rivers Shine. The music industry's resident bad boy… and the guy I accidentally slept with on my first night on the tour.
The guy I saw right through. And the guy I think I might already be in love with. He's got everything. Brooding good looks, the most kissable lips I've ever seen, and a hard exterior hiding something a whole lot softer underneath.
I don't think he is who he says he is.
And I want to figure out what's really under that heartbreaking exterior. Regardless of whether it costs me the contract I want so badly.
RIVERS
Okay, I know how this all looks. Bad boy, good girl. Cue the photographers and their bylines. Get the feel-good story in place. My agent will finally get the redemption story she's been looking for all these years.
But I've got a problem with that scheme. First off, I never go along with anyone else's plan. I've been around the business way too long to fall for every idea pitched at me, and I'm stubborn enough to know I can get my way if I demand it.
And the second problem?
Lila Potter.
She's a good girl stuck in a bad scheme. Sunshine and rainbows being thrown up against a wall of shadow. Pure love and down-home goodness that are way too pure for the likes of me.
The truth is, I want her. I want all of that. Being around her feels like being wrapped in warm cashmere while someone whispers that I'm going to be okay. And after a lifetime of having to take care of myself, I could fall right into that. Let Lila save me and love me for the rest of my life.
I could.
But I know that would do to her. It would break her the same way it's broken everyone else I've attached myself to. And I might be the music industry's biggest heartbreaker, but when it comes to Lila…
Okay, I'll just say it. I love her too much to let her go down that way. I won't allow it.
No matter how much my heart wants to give in to her.
Tattoos and Heartbreak is the first in the Lila and Rivers duo of the Trouble Next Door series, and promises a broken rock star, a girl who's too sweet for him, plenty of angst (and a little spice!), and a chance at the HEA neither of them knew they needed. Their story concludes with the next in the series, Guitars and Mistakes.
