“Fuck, those geezers have got me all worked up. I want to punch something,” Mason says as he drives his red Porsche like a maniac through the quiet streets of Ashbourne.

“I can’t believe you told them to ‘Google it.’” Liam, who’s sitting in the passenger seat, shakes his head. “Slow down.”

Mason cackles without remorse. He keeps his foot firmly on the gas, maintaining our speed.

As the oldest brother, Liam’s the responsible one who keeps us out of trouble. He’s an excellent lawyer now, and Mason often says he should thank us for training him to spot risks and mitigate them.

Mason’s a little more hot-headed than Liam and me, but I get it. We’re all angry after that encounter.

But I prefer to focus on the positives.

“That Ava, though . . .” I let my voice trail off.

I noticed the way my brothers were staring at her. I could tell they liked what they saw. They know what I’m talking about. I don’t have to explain anything.

“Yeah. Seriously,” Liam says. He doesn’t say much normally, especially when it concerns girls, so just these two words are a lot, coming from him.

“I admit she was worth the trouble of talking to her parents,” Mason says. “I couldn’t not take a closer look at that hotness. I mean, those tits, just peeking out under that lace? And did you get to see that ass?”

“God, yes,” I say.

This is weird, right?

I haven’t met a girl that piques my interest for months. Now I just randomly run into the perfect specimen of the female species in this piddly town, in the middle of nowhere? And our families have been neighbors forever?

What the fuck?

I don’t know what it is about this girl.

She’s pretty, yes. And sexy, too, as Mason’s so helpfully pointed out. But that’s not what draws me to her.

There’s a certain . . . wildness to her. But it’s contained. She looks demure and elegant on the outside—great manners, too—but her eyes . . . there’s an adventurer in there, just yearning to break free.

She’s wearing lace and heels, but she looks like she wants her boots sticky with mud instead, and her sandals wet with salty ocean water. That girl wants to roam.

Just my kind of girl.

Ah, shit. Here I go being all melancholic again. I’ve met this girl once, and I’m already planning Amazonian jungle treks and visits to the wet markets of Southeast Asia.

Okay, I’ll admit it. Like Mason, I sleep around. This dick has seen more than its fair share of pussy.

But my deep, dark secret?

I only sleep around because all the girls I’ve been in a relationship with always said they wanted to travel, but what they meant was shopping in Paris or having high tea in London. They weren’t interested in getting down and dirty.

So just because traveling’s a big part of my life, at some point in a relationship, I’d inevitably take a girl on a trip.

What can I say? It’s what I enjoy doing with a significant other. Some guys like to take their girls to the movies, I like to take my girl to . . . well, everywhere. That’s kind of the problem.

After a couple of European shopping trips, it’s normally just a matter of time until I’d take a girl to Delhi/Jakarta/Antarctica/Nairobi/Pyongyang and she’d get pick-pocketed/food poisoning/malaria/pawed at by dirty street kids/tired. And then she’d get mad at me. As if I wanted whatever happened to happen.

After a string of failed relationships, I realized what the problem was.

Those girls didn’t really want to go to those places. They were just doing it to humor me. So when something bad happened, they blamed me for it. Because they were doing it for me and not for themselves.

I grew tired of trying and failing, and decided not to try at all.

Don’t get me wrong. Variety is good. Variety is great. I know I’m lucky it’s easy for me to get variety. Not every guy gets offers without even trying like I do.

But what I really crave is depth. Quality, not quantity. A deep, almost spiritual connection.

Still, there’s no basis to my assessment of Ava Green’s personality. It’s just a gut feeling. It doesn’t make sense.

But something tells me she just might be . . .

Dare I say it?

. . .

The one.

I know, I know. It’s too soon. There’s no basis for me to say that. We talked sometimes when we were younger, but not much, and that was a long time ago.

Technically, Ava’s a stranger. I’ve only ever met adult Ava once. Which was only about ten minutes ago. When she was with her parents.

It’s not rational, I know.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

Hell, it’s most likely just wishful thinking.

But Ava intrigues me. Maybe I’m insane and maybe I’m just hearing voices, but I have to find out what it is about her that calls out to my soul so loudly.

* * *

End of preview.

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