The Upside to Being Single

Don’t miss the next installment of the USA Today bestselling romantic comedy series and find out what happens when the whole town thinks Fallon Hartigan slept with the most hated man in Harbor City.

Ian is...just my best friend. We're extremely close, stuck so deep inside a Jim-and-Pam-style friendzone everyone at work assumes we're a couple - that is until one day, word spreads through the teacher's lounge that he's single. Fair game. Suddenly, it's open season on Ian. He should be reveling in all the newfound attention, but to our mutual surprise, the only attention he seems to want is mine. He's turning our formerly innocent nightly chats into X-rated phone calls. Our playful banter sports a new, dangerous edge.  

Let your homeless best friend stay with you, he said. Being roommates will be fun, he said. It's only temporary, he said. He never said I'd fall for him. You know what isn't temporary? The endless stream of dirty socks in my bathroom and empty food packets under the sofa - and don't even get me started on the hot guys who take over my living room every Sunday to watch sports. I can't take anymore. So I propose a roommate agreement. One that will bring peace and order back to my life, complete with rules that might just stop my newfound crush on my best friend in its tracks. 

Top tip: Don't put out an online ad offering your services as a fake date. Someone will take you up on it - and it won't just be for one night. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up being Mason Jackson's fake girlfriend. He didn't even want me to be. No - his sister was solely responsible for me being his date for his 10-year high school reunion. And now, she's responsible for telling his parents our relationship is real. We have no choice. We have to act like this isn't all a mistake. 

Imagine this. You're ready to leave after a one-night stand, and you're figuring out how to - shock horror - leave your number and ask him to be your fake boyfriend for your sister's wedding this weekend. When he wakes up. Well, that happened to me. And over coffee and omelets, I found myself a date. Which was how I ended up arriving at the wedding with a guy I knew nothing about.

It’s not you. It’s me. No, seriously. It is me. Not only does my name literally mean “unfortunate”, but that’s the story of my life. Everything I touch turns to crap. An apartment fire - that I swear I was not responsible for - means I’m living back at home with my sex-mad parents. Yay, me! Which is why I need my new job as personal assistant to Cameron Reid to get back on my feet. Three months in this job and I can move back out and, hopefully, remember to turn off my flat iron once in a while. 

What do a wrong number text, a burning building, and a quirky florist have in common? A hunky firefighter with an extra-large...hosepipe. In hindsight, I never should have opened that text message. The last thing I needed first thing on a Monday was a picture of some stranger's, um, eggplant, in my inbox. I also should have replaced the batteries in my fire alarm, because my Friday night did not need to end with my apartment building going up in flames. But it's fine. It's fine. Everything is fine. 

Let me make this clear right here, right now: I, Halley Dawson, do not care that Preston Wright is kissing other women. Not a lick. Not at all. Nuh-uh-freakin'-uh. I do care that he's doing it six feet away from me behind a gaudy velvet curtain - making him my competition in this year's kissing contest. Why do I care, you ask? Because I've had an unfortunate crush on the insufferable idiot since I was 16 years old, but I also know it's never going to happen. 

Some women just have it - that combination of stunning looks and sexual confidence that brings men to their knees. Not me. My last boyfriend once fell asleep while we were...you know. Not my proudest moment. And my crush on my hot, arrogant, and oh-so-unattainable CEO? Never going to happen. But one night, after too much wine, I find myself online, creating a profile for a sex kitten called SweetVixen. Safe behind my computer screen, I'm suddenly the seductive goddess of my wildest imagination.

As the owner of Pick-A-D--k, New Orleans' premier hook-up website, my job is simple. Connect two people for a no-strings, no-expectations hook-up. The plus for my clients is that I'm the one who gets to sift through the d--k pics - except this time, they're required. My problem? My brother, co-owner of Pick-A-D--k's sister dating site, doesn't believe it's possible to hook up with someone three times and not fall in love. I disagree. I know it's possible. And my disagreement is exactly how I end up reconnected with my high school nemesis, Elliott Sloane.

What a disaster! I only just made my flight to New York to help my uncle, and the phone I'm holding is not mine! It seems to belong to some commitment-phobic serial dater who's never made it past four dates (according to the constant notifications he's getting from his fake dating profile).... And worse? I have a sinking feeling it's that hot suit-monkey with the arctic grey eyes I just had a run-in with at the airport. Somehow, I have to persuade him not to get a new phone until I get back. My whole life is on that phone. I knew I should have backed it up. It's only a few days. Surely, we can handle it.

Don’t sleep with your best friend. Take it from me. I did it. And it was awful - I-wish-the-tequila-made-me-forget kind of bad. The problem is, Luke has forgotten. He swears that he can’t remember a thing about that night beyond the trays of tequila shots being set on the tables. But I can't forget. I can’t forget how good his hands felt until I fell over and hit my hip on the dresser, and I sure as hell can’t forget the entire two minutes. 

One night and my life completely jumped the tracks. Actually, a pack of expired condoms did that - the rest of the night was pretty amazing. Open bar at a friend's wedding. Bad dancing all around. Stupid trivia bets with my fellow Ice Knights hockey teammates. And Tess Gardner. The factoid-blurting, fandom-T-shirt-wearing, no-I-don’t-want-a-relationship-with-you woman makes me forget for one night that I’m a man with a routine and my future all mapped out. Still, it sucked she left our room without giving me her number.

It was just a typical Monday. Until the big boss asked me to make the pitch for a prospective new client. After two years on shaky ground at work because of my screw up, an opportunity to impress the senior partners was just what I needed. Or so I thought, until I walked into the conference room and collided with the man I was supposed to pitch to. My coffee spilled, my files tumbled to the ground, and I almost lost my balance. And that was the good part of my day. Because the gorgeous man who crouched down and looked at me like he wanted to eat me alive was none other than my ex.

An alpha among the wolves of Wall Street, Kennedy Dawson rose to the top of the pack by striking the right contracts at the right times. But there's one deal that's been giving him a run for his money - a pact to never again let his assistant, Kate, get under his skin. She may be smart, gorgeous, and sharp as a whip, but she's definitely off-limits.