Worth the Risk

She left her dreams in New York. He dragged his failures back from Hollywood. Now, in a small town where everyone is watching, they’re about to break every rule.Ashley Mercer buried her Broadway ambitions eleven years ago. At forty-six, she has accepted her role as a high school drama teacher in the quiet town of Millbrook. She has a pension, a reputation to protect, and a life that is perfectly, safely boring. She is done with the spotlight.Then Trevor Davis walks back into town.Fresh off a decade of chasing stardom in Los Angeles that never quite caught him, Trevor is twenty-eight, devastatingly handsome, and looking for a place to land. When he is cast opposite Ashley in the local theater production, the chemistry isn’t just good acting. It’s a forest fire.On stage, she plays his mother. Behind closed doors, the dynamic is dangerously different.It is the ultimate taboo—a casting choice that should keep them apart, but instead fuels a scorching, secret affair. Late-night rehearsals turn into stolen touches, and professional distance dissolves into a passion that threatens to burn down the safe life Ashley has built.Trevor makes her feel reckless. He makes her remember the woman she was before she gave up on herself. But he is eighteen years younger, he is her co-star, and in a town like Millbrook, a scandal like this doesn’t just fade away.Ashley knows that falling for him is a disaster waiting to happen. But for the first time in twenty years, the disaster might just be Worth the Risk.