Broken Ex-Boyfriend

She married the man who took her virginity and never called.

Carrie Maragani works the crime desk at a newspaper that just changed owners, and she keeps her life small on purpose. One cat. One apartment. One deadline at a time. Then her sister arrives with their adoptive father's terms. He made a bad decision, the Dawes family can correct it, and the price is Carrie. She has to marry Benedetto Dawes.

Benny took her virginity when she was sixteen, left for college, and never picked up a phone. He broke a boy's nose on prom night. He ran off the one man who ever walked her home. Ten years later he sits across from her at her parents' restaurant, orders her to the courthouse in the morning, and asks for one year of her life and a baby before they go their separate ways.

She signs the license. She brings the cat. She takes the guest room the first night.

She does not plan on a husband who makes breakfast, who was there on the street the day her father was shot, and who decides that winning her heart is the only case he wants to try. Then the newspaper fires her for the last name she just took, and Carrie has to decide whether a marriage bought with her father's debt can ever belong to her.

Tropes: arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, second chance, reunited first love, he falls first, forced proximity, protective possessive hero, courthouse wedding, Lake Como honeymoon, no cheating, HEA guaranteed.

Narrated by Victoria Pinder in an AI digital voice.