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Against the Boards: An International Sports Romance
Paperback
Series: Between the Seasons, Book 1
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 16 2026
Pages: 214
Weight: 0.64
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Two damaged reputations. One carefully staged relationship. Nothing about their attraction is fake.
Australian swimming champion Tessa Ward has spent months fighting to reclaim the career taken from her by a contaminated-supplement scandal. She was cleared of wrongdoing, but public suspicion remains. Sponsors have disappeared, officials watch her every move, and the world seems more interested in the accusation than the truth.
Canadian hockey captain Declan Hayes knows exactly what it means to be judged by a single moment. A televised confrontation has turned him into the league's most convenient villain, even though nobody knows what he was really protecting.
Their advisers offer the same solution.
A carefully controlled public relationship between two misunderstood athletes could repair both reputations.
The rules are simple. Attend the events. Face the cameras. Give the public a believable romance. Walk away when the agreement ends.
But Tessa is the first person who sees beneath Declan's anger, and Declan is the first person who refuses to treat her as damaged. As publicity becomes intimacy and their separate battles threaten everything they have rebuilt, the arrangement stops feeling like a performance.
Falling in love was never part of the contract.
Against the Boards is a passionate international sports romance featuring fake dating, opposites attract, reputation recovery, injured athletes, media pressure and a guaranteed happy ending.
Book Three in the Between the Seasons series. Each novel can be read as a complete standalone.
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