Talented video game designer Safire Chu is gun-shy when it comes to dating real men, especially since she spends all her time shooting at their avatars.
Football player Gunner Gibson is nothing but trouble, according to the Remingtons—especially since he tried to use Siena Remington to clean up his bad boy image.
Now, Gunner wants to cheat on an online video game, so he asks Safire to a New Year’s Eve party while his publicist hacks into the game database through Safire’s computer.
A bit of champagne and the countdown to the ball drop loosens Safire’s inhibitions. When her company’s newest secret game is pirated, Safire wonders if the man she’s fallen for at first blush is not all he seems.
No way. It can’t be. The Gunner Gibson?
Safire Chu blinked and blinked, but the man standing at her apartment door seemed like the real thing—three dimensional, oozing with charm and was that a whiff of cologne? Three-dimensional avatars, well, actually 3D projected on 2D screens didn’t smell like sex and spice and woods and oh gosh, they didn’t stand at her door with a bouquet of red roses.
“You must have the wrong apartment.” Safire found her voice which managed to eek from her throat in a tiny squeak.
“You are Miss Safire Chu, aren’t you?” the man god in front of her insisted.
“Uh, sure, if you say so.” She fumbled with her tongue as her brain busily catalogued his dark, smooth hair, his chiseled angular face, his lady-killer eyes, and all of the features she’d need for her latest superhero video game avatar.
Yes, she was a video game designer, and she could use real models to fill out the wireframes she created—ones to represent Army rangers, Navy SEALs, interplanetary warriors, and, now that she thought about it, football players.
“May I come in?” He angled himself as if he were about to barge through a line of defensive backs.
“Sure, uh, yes, I mean, the place is a mess. I’ll get out of your way.” She stepped back and let the star football player into her tiny one-bedroom apartment, although she had no clue why he was standing in front of her with a dozen roses.
Rachelle Ayala is a bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Her foremost goal is to take readers on a shared emotional journey with her characters as they grow and become more true to themselves. Rachelle believes in the power of love to overcome obstacles and feels that everyone should find love as often as possible, especially if it’s within the pages of a book.
Her book, Knowing Vera, won the 2015 Angie Ovation Award, and A Father for Christmas garnered a 2015 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award.
She is also a writing teacher and founder of the Romance In A Month writing community. She lives in California with her husband and has three children and two birds.
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