We were kids when he left. Strangers when he returned. Lovers by the cruise's end.
Fifteen years ago, Evie Rowe lost the boy who held her heart without warning. No goodbye and not a single explanation. Now she’s spending Christmas on a luxury Caribbean cruise with her best friend, and runs straight into him the moment she steps aboard. Not the boy she remembers, but the man she’ll never be able to forget.
Omar Ibe fought his way from a Miami tenement to becoming the cruise director of his own ship. He thought he’d buried his biggest regret somewhere in the past, until Evie walks onto his deck looking nothing like “Scarecrow Rowe” and everything like the woman he should have loved all along.
Suddenly, fate keeps throwing them together in ways neither can ignore: a surprise reunion that drags old feelings to the surface, stolen moments and secret notes exchanged under the watchful eye of ship cameras, late-night balcony confessions that blur every line they promised not to cross, and a waterfall encounter that changes everything. With a sprinkle of Christmas magic that makes it impossible to pretend they’re anything but inevitable.
But unexpected circumstances threaten the fragile second chance they’re building.
Two weeks on the open sea gave them back what they lost. Now they’ll have to decide if love can survive the distance, the danger, and the truth about what really pulled them apart all those years ago.
A swoony, sun-soaked, high-heat novella about childhood friends, destiny rerouted, and the kind of love that keeps finding its way back no matter how far you run.
Perfect for fans of:
- second-chance romance
- childhood friends-to-lovers
- cruise ship magic
- Caribbean Christmas vibes
- emotional reunions + open-door heat
- interconnected worlds
