He’s Fighting for Gold. But She’s the One Prize He Can’t Let Go.

Wrestling is my life.
I’m training for Olympic gold.
Falling for my high school love again? That wasn’t part of the plan.

I’ve fought my way through everything—losing my parents, getting kicked out by my stepmother, living on the streets. Wrestling saved me. Made me a fighter. And now, I’m days away from proving myself on the world’s biggest stage.

But then I see Vanessa Maye.

The girl I never stopped loving.
The girl who walked away.

We’re at the same wedding, and I should be focused on my career.
Instead, I’m focused on her.

She’s avoiding me.
Hiding something.
And I’m about to find out why.

The chemistry? Still off the charts.
The feelings? More dangerous than ever.
And when I uncover her biggest secret… everything changes.

She was my first love. My greatest loss. And now, I have one more fight ahead of me—winning her back.

A heart-stopping, second-chance romance featuring a fierce athlete, a hidden secret, and a love too powerful to stay buried. Read now!

Vanessa Maye

Avoid Stone for a few more hours, I told myself. You’ve avoided him this long in Napa. It’s easy enough to pretend you’re busy with this wedding. You’re a bridesmaid—they help the bride.

Pep talk done, I stepped back. No more staring at myself in the mirror of the women’s restroom in the hotel lobby. I wasn’t his anymore. We’d moved on. I squared my shoulders in my sleeveless full-length green bridesmaid dress. After leaving Pittsburgh six years ago, he’d never looked back.

Another guest, a woman I didn’t know, came into the bathroom, and I stilled as she headed past me. Then I breathed again as she passed and didn’t even blink at me or pay me any attention.

Stone was out there, and he had no idea I’d had his son, who was currently at home with my mom while I flew to Napa for this all-expenses-paid wedding.

The avoid-Stone-at-all-costs mission had been easy so far since the Steel family had used the wedding as a family reunion. So I’d disappeared after wedding duties to see the sights of Napa Valley, taste wine, and call home. I missed my boy.

The wedding ceremony had kept me busy, but all that remained was the reception. Hopefully, Stone would stay with his little sister and extended family on one end of the ballroom while I stayed on the other.

A toilet flushed in one of the stalls. Time to leave the sink and the white walls with bright mirrors and head inside. The hall was busy with people, but I stopped at the door of the ballroom with a view of one of the vineyards of Napa. The bride, Indigo Steel, was seriously living the dream with this wedding. Everything about this was picturesque. Pittsburgh never smelled this sweet, even in the spring.

I scanned the ballroom to find him. I was at the head table, with the wedding party, and Stone wasn’t anywhere in the room. Good.

I stepped forward to go to my seat, but a strong hand cupped my wrist. My heartbeat strummed, and I glanced up to see the one man I never wanted to see again and the only man who’d ever made me weak in the knees.

His lips curved higher on his square face. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“True.” My heart raced a little more. He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t struggle. I didn’t know who I’d been kidding in the bathroom. If he wanted me, I was his.

“I thought we were cool,” he said. “You helped me track down Emily’s number.”

Cool wasn’t a word I would have used to describe us, but yes, I’d helped him get his sister’s phone number. It was a simple kindness. I tugged my hand away and crossed my arms under my chest, heaving it a little in his direction to see if he even noticed. “One phone call doesn’t make us friends, but I remembered how your stepmother took everything from you, including your cell phone. You were lucky the car was in your name after the funeral.”

“Lana is the devil.” He glanced down, and my nipples betrayed me under the sheer dress.

I dropped my hands so he wouldn’t see how hard he’d already made my nipples.

“And we were more than friends… once.”

I closed my eyes. His nearness still made me ache for more, but he was right. We were the past, and I had our son as a living memory. Ignoring the heat in my veins, I said, “Life moves on, and clearly, you have been favored.”

He brushed my shoulder, just for a moment as he came closer, but my lips tingled for his kiss when he said, “I trained hard—all day, every day.”

“That’s clearly true.” I pressed my hand on his chest, and a shock rushed in me. This was a mistake.

He was all dense muscle, and my fingers ached to discover if he was still hard and passionate underneath that suit of his. I let out a sigh as I let him go. “My mother was convinced you were bad news and would never amount to anything.”

I played with my gold necklace as he rocked on his feet. “My stepmother probably still thinks that of me. She made Emily’s life hard in the past five years, but with you, I wasn’t always a bad boy.”