The Rival's Surrender

Lena Vasquez doesn’t believe in forever. She’s a divorce attorney who’s built a career on the wreckage of other people’s vows, and she’s learned exactly how love ends: with a signed settlement and a billable hour. But when her flight to Key West for her best friend’s wedding gets canceled, the universe delivers a far more personal disaster: the man who once made her believe in it all, quoting Casablanca in the middle of an airport gate. Now, with zero flights and a maid of honor duty she can’t escape, she’s trapped in a rental car for a road trip down the Florida coast with the one person she’s spent years trying to forget. The same man who vanished from her life without explanation. He says he’s different. She knows better—people don’t change, they just wait for the other shoe to drop. But forced into impossibly close quarters, every mile unwinds another memory. Every roadside diner, every stolen glance across the center console, every heated argument that feels a breath away from something else entirely. He’s determined to rewrite their ending. She’s determined to prove him wrong. What happens when a woman who profits from love’s failure is forced to face the only man she ever truly wanted to last? *second chance, forced proximity, road trip, cynical heroine, witty banter*