Football star. Single dad. And once, a long time ago, mine. I’ve spent the better part of a decade forgetting Ford Ellis. If he had just stayed away from Montana, I might have erased the memory of his striking blue eyes and rugged smile forever. Avoiding him was easy when the only place I saw his face was on ESPN—and a remote control could fix that problem.

I have a simple plan. Finish Royal Elite School and get into my dream university. One glance from the school’s king blows my plan up in smoke. One glance and he suffocates my air. One glance and he issues his death sentence. His first words spiral my life into irreparable chaos. “I will destroy you.” Everything about Aiden King is black. Black mind. Black heart. Black soul. I should’ve remained quiet and endured the time I have left. I didn’t. I made the irrevocable mistake of provoking the king on his throne. 

The average song is three and a half minutes long; those three and a half minutes could lead to a slow blink, a glimpse of the past, or catapult the soul into heart-shattering nostalgia. At the height of my career, I had the life I wanted, the life I’d always envisioned. I’d found my tempo, my rhythm. Then I received a phone call that left me off key. You see, my favorite songs had a way of playing simultaneously. I was in love with one man’s beats and another’s lyrics. But when it came to the soundtrack of a life, how could anyone choose a favorite song? 

When she was young, Arya Roth became best friends with her housekeeper’s son. Soon, friendship turned to young love, and when Arya dared him to kiss her, a chain reaction of disastrous events led to the boy being sent away and out of Arya’s life. Now, two decades later, Arya is an on-the-rise publicist with her beloved father as one of her biggest clients. So when her father is sued by a former employee, Arya sets out to prove that her father is not the monster he is accused of being. The only problem is the attorney who is determined to destroy her father’s good name. 

Left without a job and evicted from the house she so carefully turned into a home, Aria is offered two choices: move back in with her brother . . . or take the job her brother's best friend offers her.