Arrrrrik

"Ten years. No exceptions. The system doesn't take exceptions.
And then she walked straight past every wall like there was a door I never knew about."

Lori Morris spent nineteen years as the treasured daughter of one of Malibu's wealthiest families—until they found their real daughter and threw her out overnight. Now she delivers takeout in a black uniform, works herself to the bone to stay in school, and clings to the one person who swore he'd never leave: her boyfriend, Austin.

Then fate hands her a delivery to a victory party.

His victory party.

In front of the whole hockey team, Austin looks her dead in the eye—and pretends he's never met her. "You know how it is," he laughs. "The servers all want to throw themselves at me."

Humiliated, dumped, and left holding the ring she'd meant to give him, Lori is about to crawl out of that mansion when he steps out of the crowd.

Bastien Galloway. Hockey captain. Galloway heir. The most untouchable man on campus—literally. He hasn't let a woman lay a finger on him in ten years without his body screaming to recoil.

So why does he kneel to pick up the money thrown at her feet?

Why does he force her tormentor to apologize?

And why—when her fingers accidentally brush his—does his body stay quiet for the first time in a decade?

Lori is Austin's ex. The last complication Bastien needs.

But she's also the only exception his broken nervous system has ever made… and he's about to discover that a touch exception was an accident.

A wantingexception is a problem.