CHESTNUT SPRINGS 5 : HOPELESS - Piatkus

“I wasn’t looking for love; I was looking for a purpose. I just didn’t expect my purpose to be you.”

Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome hero with a tortured past. Bailey Jansen is the younger outcast bartender from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s thirty-five, all man, and her fiancé. Correction: her fake fiancé.

It starts out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone in their small town holds the Jansen last name against her – so he offers to prove a point. And it’s a win-win: Beau gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and Bailey gets a chance to shed her family’s reputation while she saves up to ditch town for good. All she has to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend she can’t keep her hands off him in public.

But it’s what happens between them in private that blurs all those carefully drawn lines. It’s what transpires behind closed doors that doesn’t feel like pretending at all. This engagement was supposed to be for show. This agreement? It has an end date.

Beau once told Bailey he’d never fall in love. Yet, here she is, head over heels for her fake fiancé.