ANCHOR

About this book

He holds everyone up. She's the first to ask who holds him.

A grumpy-sunshine, forbidden, slow-burn college basketball romance.

Mason Cole is six-foot-eight of quiet Texas farm boy — the gentle giant who anchors the Westfall Vipers at center and carries his whole family off the court without ever once asking for help. One strong NBA draft saves the farm, so he keeps his head down, his hands clean, and his heart out of it.

Then the university makes him liaison to the relentlessly sunny senior designing the new arena, and week after week in the same rooms, the man who carries everyone starts wanting something for himself. He breaks his own rule first. He falls first.

Wren Avery trusts only the loads she's calculated. Her father was charming and looked solid right up until he proved hollow, so she keeps waiting for this quiet giant to crack. He doesn't. He just keeps showing up — and somewhere between the blueprints and the late nights, she catches herself wanting to lean.

Then a donor's no-scandal clause turns one whisper into a weapon: her first real project, his shot at the draft, the farm behind it — all of it, gone. They should stop. They can't.

The harder they hide it, the harder it gets to remember why she shouldn't be the one who finally holds him.

Grumpy-sunshine. Forbidden. Slow burn. Gentle giant, forced proximity, found family, he-falls-first, opposites attract. Open-door spice (3/5), emotion-first.

Book 4 in the Westfall Vipers series — fully standalone, HEA, no cliffhanger.