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Unguarded: A Slow Burn Fake Dating College Hockey Romance
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 26 2026
Pages: 278
Weight: 0.83
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
She has spent sixteen years building walls no one can get through. He has spent three years observing from a safe distance. Neither of them planned on this.
Mara Santos runs her life the way she runs the ice - with total control. As captain of Eastfield University's women's hockey team and Olympic trials candidate, she has no room for distractions, no space for vulnerability, and absolutely no patience for the kind of mess that feelings make. Then her ex-boyfriend walks into the team meeting as the new guest coach, and everything she has so carefully constructed develops a crack.
With scouts tracking her every move and her professional reputation on the line, Mara needs a new narrative. What she gets is Theo Callahan - sports psychology graduate assistant, irritatingly perceptive, and the last person she would have chosen to ask for help. The arrangement takes shape quickly: she poses as his girlfriend long enough to change the story the team is telling about her. He gets the research access his dissertation desperately needs. Strategic. Temporary. Completely under control.
Except Theo doesn't watch Mara the way everyone else does. He isn't cataloguing her stats or evaluating her performance. He is asking the one question she has never been able to answer: who are you when the game is over?
The closer the pretense gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to hold the line between what they agreed to and what is actually happening. Mara has spent years convincing herself that vulnerability is a liability she cannot afford. Theo has spent years convincing himself that observation is safer than participation. They are both wrong - and they are running out of time to admit it.
Slow-burn, sharp-witted, and emotionally honest, Unguarded is a fake dating romance about the most dangerous thing two guarded people can do to each other: decide to be real.
For readers who love enemies-to-lovers tension, sports romance with genuine emotional depth, and a love story that earns its ending one honest conversation at a time.
Perfect for readers who love slow-burn fake dating romance, emotionally complex sports fiction, and love stories that earn every page of their ending. HEA guaranteed.Also from
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