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The Pact
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 29 2026
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.44 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
She built a life the world applauds-until coming home reminds her what her heart never forgot.
Maelyn Dukes is a competitive marathon runner with a successful gluten-free lifestyle brand-and a life built on speed. Sponsorships. Airports. Finish lines. Everything looks perfect from the outside... until she returns to Shady Oak, North Carolina for her ten-year high school reunion.
Home is supposed to be a quick stop. Instead, it becomes a reckoning.
Her mama's long-awaited county fair dream is finally taking shape. Old wounds and small-town memories surface. And Camp Kendrick-the steady, blue-collar farmer who's loved her since they were kids-steps back into her life like he never stopped being her safe place. Camp is work boots and quiet loyalty: early mornings, hard work, and the kind of devotion that shows up without needing credit.
When gossip flares and her past threatens her peace, Maelyn and Camp strike a one-week deal: a pretend relationship to survive the reunion and silence the talk. It's supposed to be harmless. Temporary. Easy.
But fake dating gets complicated when the feelings aren't pretend... and the life Maelyn built starts demanding more than she wants to give.
As career pressure tightens and the spotlight pulls her farther from everything that grounds her, Maelyn must decide what success really means-and whether the life she's running toward is worth losing the love that feels like home.
THE PACT is a clean, closed-door Southern romance packed with small-town charm, best friends-to-lovers tension, fake dating sparks, a blue-collar hero, and a hopeful happily-ever-after.
Perfect for readers who love:
- clean small town southern romance
- closed door best friends to lovers romance
- fake dating clean romance small town
- blue collar hero clean romance
- second chance coming home romance clean
- runner athlete romance clean
- clean romance runner influencer small town
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