The Weight of Wanting You by Ibrahim Adama

Wren Callahan was twenty years old the summer she fell in love with the wrong man — and spent the next two years convincing herself it wasn't a mistake.

Alexander Cross owned the estate where her father worked security. He was older, married, and certain of himself in a way that made her feel chosen instead of complicit. For two years he gave her a life built entirely out of secrets: hotel rooms with ocean views, a promise made on a terrace in Positano, and a version of love that asked her to want nothing in return but him.

Then the truth came out in front of everyone who mattered, and Wren had to learn how to build a life out of what was left of her own.

She didn't expect to fall in love again. She definitely didn't expect it to happen slowly, in daylight, with a man who had nothing to hide.

Theo Marchetti is a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer who spends his days restoring kelp forests and his evenings raising his orphaned nephew — open about exactly who he is, with everyone, in a way Wren has never once been allowed to be. He doesn't offer her grand gestures or hidden rooms. He offers her the truth, on purpose, every single day, and asks nothing of her but the same.

THE WEIGHT OF WANTING YOU is a sensual, emotionally rich contemporary romance about the wrong kind of love, the right kind, and everything a woman has to survive — and forgive herself for — in between. For readers who love second-chance romance, slow-burn healing, and a hero worth the wait: some loves cost you everything. The right one gives it all back.