Kandis Smith

Stop the Car for Her

For six weeks, Ethan Voss has watched the same woman through the café window — black coat, espresso, a paperback she never once looked up from — and told himself a man like him doesn't stare. Today the rain is coming down in sheets, she's walking straight past his idling SUV without an umbrella, and every controlled, calculated instinct he has built over thirty-eight years is screaming at him to keep the window up. He rolls it down anyway. The moment the glass drops, something irreversible begins — because she doesn't stop walking, doesn't look at him, and that is the single thing in this city Ethan Voss does not know how to survive.

Hates You or Wants You: Declan's Truth

Your brother's best friend just started a war at your birthday party — and you are standing there soaked in someone else's jealousy. Declan Voss has spent four years making you feel invisible. Cold looks across the dinner table. One-word answers. The particular cruelty of a man who acts like you are an inconvenience he tolerates for your brother's sake. You told yourself you hated him back. It was easier that way. Then tonight happened. One careless sentence — 'she's prettier' — and his date's champagne is in your hair, the party has gone silent, and Declan is walking toward you with an expression you have never seen on his face before. Not cold. Not indifferent. Something raw and furious and entirely focused on you. Your brother is somewhere in this crowd. The rules have not changed. But Declan is three steps away, and for the first time in four years, he is not pretending you do not exist.