Hidden Bonds

Name: Hidden Bonds
Author: Sophie Quinn

151 pages

Sawyer
This year has been hell.
I lost my mother. My bakery is failing. And most days I’m barely holding myself together.
My friends, as crazy as they can be, refuse to let me drown. They push me to get help and step in to save the bakery. Noah even gives me a list of changes and things to improve. If I follow his plan everything may work out. One of the changes is hiring part-time help.
That’s when Aiden walks in looking for a job.
He’s quiet, closed off, and moody in a way that makes him impossible to read.
But somehow with him around things start to change. The bakery begins to feel alive again. I begin to remember why I loved baking in the first place.
And Aiden . . .
For the first time in a long time, I feel something. Something that is very hard for me to find. My friends say I’m picky. I’m looking for a unicorn, but that’s not right. I’m just looking for a feeling, and that’s what I’ve found in him.
Passion. Heat. A rush that leaves me breathless.
But there’s more to Aiden than the cold mask he shows the world. Underneath all the ice in bite is a sad man who craves the same things I do. Or maybe that’s what I want to see. My friends try to warn me. I can’t deny there’s danger.
I just don’t know if it’s the good kind, or the kind of danger that will set my life on fire and burn everything I’ve rebuilt to the ground.

Aiden
My life has always been about following orders.
First from the men my mother brought into my life. Then from the man who holds my sisters life in his hands. When my mother died she left behind two things. Me, and my little sister.
She’s the only thing that matters to me.
One more job. That’s all I need to do before we’re finally free.
Freedom, it turns out, isn’t as simple as It sounds.
I take a job at a struggling bakery to keep my head down and finish what I started. The owner is stressed out, chaotic . . . and ridiculously handsome.
But none of that matters.
It can’t.
There’s too much on the line for me to get distracted, especially by the way my chest tightens every time he looks at me. Or the rush of heat that fills my stomach when his starry eyes are on me.
This was supposed to be simple.
Then the lies start unraveling.
Secrets come to light. Betrayal cuts deeper than expected. Add in Sawyer’s chaotic friends, a notorious mob family, and . . . a giant mountain man in a pink crop top, everything I worked for begins to implode.
Now everything is falling apart.
And I’m not sure either of us will survive the fall out.