Work, sleep, work, repeat. Nero's lonely life suits him just fine until his best friend, Cass, asks him to take on a new apprentice — a beautiful young man who's never set foot in a professional kitchen. Despite his irritation and his lifelong ability to shut the world out, Nero is mesmerised by the vibrant stray, especially when he learns what drove him to seek sanctuary on Nero's battered old couch.Lenny Mitchell is living under a cloud of fear. Pursued by a stalker, he has nowhere left to run until Nero offers him a port in a storm — a job at the hottest restaurant in Shepherd's Bush. Kitchen life proves heady and addictive, and it's not long before he finds himself falling hard and fast for the man who has taken him in.Fast-forward a month and a neither man can imagine life without the other, but one thing stands in their way: a lifetime of horrors Nero can't bring himself to share with Lenny. Or can he? For the first time ever, happiness is there for the...

Web designer Jodi Peters is a solitary creature. Lunch twice a week with his ex-girlfriend-turned-BFF and the occasional messy venture to a dodgy gay bar is all the company he needs, right?Then one night he stumbles across newly divorced firefighter Rupert O'Neil. Rupert is lost and lonely, but just about the sweetest bloke Jodi has ever known. Add in the heady current between them, and Jodi can't help falling hard in love. He offers Rupert a home within the walls of his cosy Tottenham flat — a sanctuary to nurture their own brand of family — and for four blissful years, life is never sweeter.Until a cruel twist of fate snatches it all away. A moment of distraction leaves Jodi fighting for a life he can't remember and shatters Rupert's heart. Jodi doesn't know him — or want to. With little left of the man he adores, Rupert must cling to what remains of his shaky faith and pray that Jodi can learn to love him again.

The diagnosis of a chronic stomach condition leaves thirty-two-year-old Sergeant Jed Cooper with little choice but to call time on his Army career. Then on the dusty streets of Kirkuk, an ambush gone tragically wrong decimates his team, and he returns to the US with a shattered leg and the memory of his best friend dying in his arms. Life in his sleepy hometown proves intolerable until he finds solace in a lakeside cabin with vivacious young carpenter, Max O’Dair. In the shadow of the epilepsy that periodically plagues Max, he and Jed form an unspoken bond. After a late night episode, Jed realizes how much Max means to him, and life has taught him not to waste time. But the lines between contentment and complacency are blurred. Things left hidden resurface to tear through their world, and before they can repair the damage, death comes to call again. Faces, past and present, rally around them to weather the storm, but before long, they are left with only love.