He’s spent fourteen years refusing to look at the one girl he should never touch.
Elena Hale has one unbreakable rule: never touch anything that belongs to her brother — especially not his best friend.
Cole Bennett has been off-limits for as long as she can remember. The guy who crashed on their couch every summer. The guy her brother Ryan would kill her for looking at twice. The guy she’s spent five quiet, secret years craving.
This summer, Ryan is gone for weeks.
The lake house belongs to just the two of them.
One glance becomes one touch.
One touch becomes something neither of them can walk away from… and neither of them wants to.
But love built in secret always comes due.
When the truth finally breaks, it won’t just cost them each other.
It will cost them the brother who trusted them both completely.
Cole knows exactly what he’s risking — fourteen years of friendship, a family that took him in as one of their own, everything he built by never once crossing this line.
Elena knows exactly what she’s risking too.
Yet some bonds, once broken by honesty instead of betrayal, come back stronger than they ever were.
One summer. One forbidden line. One choice that will change everything.