Showing results by author "Julia Kent" in All Categories

Dad gave me my late mother's engagement ring, platinum and diamonds galore. Shannon wouldn't care if I slid a giant hard-candy ring on her finger instead of a three-carat diamond designed to impress. But my future mother-in-law, Marie, will pass out when she sets eyes on that rock, which will give us two minutes of blessed silence ... I was going to make it perfect, from the color of the tablecloth to the freshness of the roses. And it was perfect...until Shannon swallowed the ring.

It all started with the wrong Help Wanted ad. Of course it did. I'm a professional fluffer. It's not what you think. I stage homes for a living. Real estate agents love me, and my work stands on its own merits. Sigh. Get your mind out of the gutter. Go ahead. Laugh. I'll wait. See? That's the problem. My career has used the term "fluffer" for decades. I didn't even know there was a more...lascivious definition of the term. Until it was too late.

When I was young and impulsive (okay, it was only five years ago, alright?) I let my boyfriend take, let's just say...compromising pictures of me. (Shut up. It made sense at the time.) Surprise! The sleazy back-stabbing jerk posted them on a website and, well, you can guess what happened. I’m a meme. Now I get tagged on social media whenever anyone shares them. You try getting a thousand notifications a day, all of them pictures of your tatas. It’s time for revenge. But how do you get embarrassingly intimate pictures of your jerkface ex who double-crossed you five years ago?

A random meeting between a rural Ohio chick and a rich Boston musician kickstarted all sorts of random acts of love and adoration—and got even more complicated when his bandmate entered the picture.

We skipped right over the whole fiancée thing and went straight from girlfriend to wife. At least, I think that's what happened. I woke up after my brother's Vegas wedding reception with my luscious girlfriend in bed with me. We're both wearing wedding rings. So is her coworker, Josh. And our Vegas chauffeur, Geordi. Who the hell am I married to? Unraveling this mystery will be as difficult as figuring out why Amanda and I are having panic attacks over the thought of being husband and wife.

Ten years ago, my high school crush found me during senior finals week in the student parking lot with my car decorated with items you find behind a drugstore counter and a "Most Likely to..." banner that would make a pro blush. And by "pro", I don't mean golf. In under an hour, everything I knew about myself was turned upside down and inside out, just as our high school career was in its final hours.

I swear I am not the kind of person who gets her cell phone caught in places that require an ER trip and an OBGYN. But apparently, I am. I’m also not the kind of person who spends all her time thinking about the guy who got away. But apparently, I am, too. Starting a new life in Boston isn’t supposed to include repeatedly embarrassing myself in public, meeting a crazy blond woman who has ties to the band Random Acts of Crazy, and definitely isn’t supposed to include wallowing in a past I thought I’d left behind four years ago.

I was ready to propose and I got upstaged by a snake. Not a real one. My bandmate. A case of mistaken identity almost derailed my proposal to Amy, but in the end, love prevailed. And my hand hurts from the punch, but it was worth it. She’s worth it. But I really need an ice pack now. Though a kiss from Amy and that yes are even better.

Gerald Wright works for billionaires. He never imagined he'd become one.The former Navy Seal is a chauffeur by day, artist by night, so when hotter-than-ever ex-fiancée Suzanne Dayton interrupts his nude model sculpting class to serve him with inheritance paperwork from a man he's never heard of, he assumes it's a joke. Turns out the joke's on him. There's just one catch. A big one. And it might be Suzanne - in more ways than he ever dreamed.

The last ever-loving thing I ever thought I’d become is a hypocrite. A big, fat one. Joe doesn’t even want me to meet his parents. Trevor’s fine with it, but only if they keep thinking I’m his girlfriend. And only his girlfriend. He doesn’t want that pesky little thing called truth to get in the way. Both of them are my boyfriends. Both.

As a shocking betrayal shakes the very foundation of everything he believes in, Kell must decide who to trust, who to challenge, who needs him most—and figure out fast whether Rachel’s warnings about his girlfriend are credible or yet another tactical maneuver in a city founded on them.

I get paid to follow a womanizing troglodyte who thinks rules are for other people and that my pants are the next pair he’s getting into. Bet your first professional job didn’t involve babysitting an extremely hot, muscle-bound Scottish highlander with an ego the size of a kilt and libido bigger than his…well…chicken. Keeping Scottish football (that’s "soccer" to us Americans) player Hamish McCormick away from inappropriate scandals while he does product endorsement campaigns is my mission. No problem. Until Hamish decides I’m his next scandal. And maybe more...

My mother wants all her kids and grandkids to spend Christmas Eve at her house and wake up on Christmas morning together. Sounds reasonable, right? And it would be. If it weren’t my mother. My husband, Declan, is protesting any involvement, though he’s openly intrigued by the idea of claiming his territory by having sex in my childhood bed. And by intrigued, I mean a series of really hot suggestions that make me whimper when I have to say no. Wait - why am I saying no, again?

I'm not too proud to admit that finding Mr. Right involves swiping right. Right? Welcome to dating in avocado toastland. Here I am, on my first blind date, ever, courtesy of a smartphone app and my two annoying best friends. So what is Chris "Fletch" Fletcher doing, walking across the room, looking at his phone like he's pattern matching a picture to find a real person he's never met before? Oh. Oh, no. The guy I drop-kicked in seventh grade cannot be my blind date. The guy who earned me this infernal nickname.

Luke Luview has given up on love. Finally ready to let go of his late wife’s clothes, the grieving small-town police officer and single dad thinks he’s hearing things when he opens the charity box door. Who knocks from the inside of a donation bin? The raccoon he assumes is in there turns out to be way prettier—and very familiar. Rescuing the first girl he ever kissed means life has dealt him a wild card with Kylie Hood, his late wife’s best friend who left town suddenly 15 years ago under a cloud of scandal.

How do you top the perfect wedding to the perfect man in the best hometown with the greatest best friends ever? With an even better reception. And how do you top the best reception ever? With the picture-perfect honeymoon in Fiji. Except when our past comes back to haunt us, things don’t go quite as planned.

God damn! Charlotte, my ex-girlfriend, had to be here, of all places. At a bachelorette party where I was a stripper, dressed in a cop uniform with pants that suddenly got way too tight. And she had to be so fine. “Ooooh, honey, you’re one big officer,” said a sultry voice behind me as I watched Charlotte in the other room, chatting with the bride.

I guzzled another flute of Champagne and froze, the liquid in my throat, waiting to be swallowed. Tyler was here. We’d met a few times before, in passing. He was the substitute bass player for the band; I was the lead guitar player’s girlfriend’s best friend. In that weird sort of social circle thing where Venn diagrams get laid over different groups, Tyler and I were bound to be in the crossover once in a while.

You ever really think that you'll win the lottery? Meet Mr. Right? How about two Mr. Rights? Somehow the universe is handing me everything I want (except for that lottery part...), and I don't like it. Not one little bit. Because just when you get all your dreams handed to you on a silver platter, that's when an airplane dumps its sewage on your house. Or your mama's diabetes takes a bad turn. Or your mobile phone gets stuck in your hoohaw. (What? It happens...)

I'm thrilled to be the maid of honor in my friend's wedding, but the best man, Andrew McCormick, is a chauvinistic pig with a god complex. And I can't stop kissing him in closets.