Crushed

What happens when the person who knows you best is someone you've never met?

He's a hacker in hiding, living off-grid in a Sonoma vineyard safehouse while he and his friends build a security firm designed to take down the cybercriminals they once worked for.

She's a struggling bookshop owner—or that's what she lets people believe. In reality, she's an heiress to one of wine country's most powerful families, and she's learned that anonymity is the only way to know whether someone wants her instead of the Rossi name.

For fifteen years, their friendship has lived online—two avatars, two aliases, and a safe distance from real life.

Until Erik walks into Vivi's bookshop to finally put a face to the name.

His plan is simple: one look, stay hidden, go home.

Then he sees her.

Meeting in person changes everything. Attraction wasn't part of their friendship. Neither was falling in love. And neither can afford to tell the other the full truth.

Because Erik's past is hunting him. Vivi's secrets make her a target. And the closer they get, the more dangerous it becomes to protect the one person who knew them before either knew the other's name.

 Crushed is a standalone romance and the first book in the Twisted Vines series.