The One That Got Away: When the Photographer Returns
"You abandoned me like if I didn't exist. What do you expect when you return now? Pardon? A second opportunity? Lennox, I'm no longer that helpless boy. The man who learnt to survive without you is me.
Lennox Gray was meant to be unique. Ten years ago, she made the decision to leave Willowbrook and the boy she loved, Caden Rivers, to pursue her dreams of becoming a photographer in New York. She was talented, ambitious, and desperate to get away from the oppressive small town that whispered about her "charity case" existence living with her aunt after her parents' deaths.
She believed that she was rescuing them both from a life of mediocrity. She made a mistake.
Lennox, now a well-known photographer whose fame is waning as quickly as it came, returns to Willowbrook for her aunt's urgent surgery after being publically betrayed by both her fiancé, who stole her art, and her best friend, who took her man. She is anxious to hide from the controversy ruining her career because she is broke.
She is completely destroyed by what she discovers.
The "nobody" she left behind, Caden Rivers, is now a rich CEO who owns half of the Pacific Northwest. The man who creates empires was once a boy who worked in his father's shop fixing automobiles. The kind, compassionate person who showed her unwavering love is now cold, cruel, and engaged to the town's most beautiful girl.
However, when Lennox's aunt requires costly medical care that Lennox cannot afford, Caden offers her a retaliatory offer: pose as his fiancée in order to make his true fiancée envious and secure a vital business merger. He will pay for everything in return.
The guidelines are straightforward: no genuine emotions, no going back in time, and no falling in love ever again.
Caden, however, is engaging in a more complex game. The woman who ruined him has returned, defenseless and desperate, after ten years of building his business on the ashes of his broken heart. He ought to desire retribution. He ought to wish to inflict the same suffering on her that he did.
However, Caden discovers three heartbreaking realities as forced closeness brings back memories of their former selves, stolen looks, and unintentional touches: The real villain has been lying in plain sight for ten years, pulling threads to keep them apart. Lennox never wanted to leave him, but someone forced her to.
Lennox has to decide whether to fight for the love she has always desired or flee as she did before when the truth bursts. And without the one lady who ever considered him sufficient, Caden has to determine whether his billion-dollar empire is worth anything.
To save him, she departed. To forget her, he created an empire. Now fate is giving them one last chance—if the secrets don't destroy them first.
