A sexy, brother's best friend sports romance from # 1 New York Times bestseller Lauren Blakely!Let me make a few things clear. I didn't go to the wedding intending to dance with the best man, to dare him to show me a very sexy pic on his phone, or to accidentally kiss him in the hotel elevator after the reception ended. But you know how it goes. Things just happen at weddings... The next day, Crosby and I agree to put all those shenanigans behind us. The fun-loving, stupidly gorgeous, all-star baseball player might be my brother's best friend, but he's my friend too and has been for years, so it's easy to move on, especially since I have a high-profile business to run. But since he's newly single and I'm always single, it turns out we both desperately need plus ones. We agree to "publicly date" over the next two weeks of galas, parties and events before his baseball season begins. The only trouble is the more time I spend with Crosby, the more I keep imagining how much I want him to take my V-card. And when I broach the possibility with Crosby, his answer surprises the hell out of me.

Achieve "Massive Action" results and accomplish your business dreams! While most people operate with only three degrees of action-no action, retreat, or normal action-if you're after big goals, you don't want to settle for the ordinary. To reach the next level, you must understand the coveted 4th degree of action. This 4th degree, also know as the 10 X Rule, is that level of action that guarantees companies and individuals realize their goals and dreams. The 10 X Rule unveils the principle of "Massive Action," allowing you to blast through business clichŽs and risk-aversion while taking concrete steps to reach your dreams. It also demonstrates why people get stuck in the first three actions and how to move into making the 10X Rule a discipline. Find out exactly where to start, what to do, and how to follow up each action you take with more action to achieve Massive Action results. Learn the "Estimation of Effort" calculation to ensure you exceed your targets Make the Fourth Degree a way of life and defy mediocrity Discover the time management myth Get the exact reasons why people fail and others succeed Know the exact formula to solve problems Extreme success is by definition outside the realm of normal action. Instead of behaving like everybody else and settling for average results, take Massive Action with The 10 X Rule, remove luck and chance from your business equation, and lock in massive success.

The woman I want is as off-limits as they come. I had an excuse two years ago when I met her on campus. She interviewed me for a story on major league baseball's rising stars, and we shared a hot, passionate night that ended far too soon, and without a mention of who her father was. Now I know the innocent but sexy woman I can't stop thinking about is the coach's daughter. That means her dad is the guy who determines if I bat fourth in the starting lineup in every game, or ride the bench. All the more reason to resist alluring, confident, brainy Reese every time I run into the reporter-turned-sports publicist. That ought to be easy enough, until the time she confesses she's still carrying her V card, and she's been wanting me to cash it in since the day we met. Staying away from her is going to be harder than resisting a fastball down the middle. Especially since I'm pretty sure she's the one who got away, and letting her slip through my fingers again would be a rookie mistake.

A virgin, an athlete, a fake romance ... and only one bed in the hotel room. Following rules shot me to the top of my game as an all-star baseball player, and the golden rule is this -- don't hookup with your teammate's sister. But ask her to be your fake date when you desperately need one for a family wedding? Nothing in the guy code against that. Plus, the flirty, feisty Sierra's my friend too, so why the hell not pretend we're madly in lust for two days in Hawaii? No hardship in a make believe kiss here, a fake smooch there, as long as we don't cross any dangerous lines. Then, the hotel books us into the same suite. Which means she's showering near me, putting on itty bitty bikinis in the same room, sliding into that king-size bed wearing only a black lace cami. But I resist ... until the night she tells me she's been waiting for me to be her first. And there's nothing fake about my desire to say yes, even though that's definitely against the code. But, maybe only if someone catches feelings? And neither one of us will. Until I do ...

A panoramic history of rules in the Western world Rules order almost every aspect of our lives. They set our work hours, dictate how we drive and set the table, tell us whether to offer an extended hand or cheek in greeting, and organize the rites of life, from birth through death. We may chafe under the rules we have, and yearn for ones we don’t, yet no culture could do without them. In Rules, historian Lorraine Daston traces their development in the Western tradition and shows how rules have evolved from ancient to modern times. Drawing on a rich trove of examples, including legal treatises, cookbooks, military manuals, traffic regulations, and game handbooks, Daston demonstrates that while the content of rules is dazzlingly diverse, the forms that they take are surprisingly few and long-lived. Daston uncovers three enduring kinds of rules: the algorithms that calculate and measure, the laws that govern, and the models that teach. She vividly illustrates how rules can change—how supple rules stiffen, or vice versa, and how once bothersome regulations become everyday norms. Rules have been devised for almost every imaginable activity and range from meticulous regulations to the laws of nature. Daston probes beneath this variety to investigate when rules work and when they don’t, and why some philosophical problems about rules are as ancient as philosophy itself while others are as modern as calculating machines. Rules offers a wide-angle view on the history of the constraints that guide us—whether we know it or not.

How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work. Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing games. They all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules? In The Rule Book, Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola explore how different kinds of rules work as building blocks of games. Rules are constraints placed on us while we play, carving a limited possibility space for us. They also inject meaning into our play: without rules there is no queen in chess, no ball in Pong, and no hole in one in golf. Stenros and Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types: the explicit statements listed in the official rules, the private limitations and goals players place on themselves, the social and cultural norms that guide gameplay, the external regulation the surrounding society places on playing, and the material embodiments of rules. Depending on the game, rules can be formal, internal, social, external, or material. By considering the similarities and differences of wildly different games and rules within a shared theoretical framework, The Rule Book renders all games more legible.

This sensual jewel of a tale is an extract from ‘Valley of Amazement’ – the first book in six years from the beloved and bestselling Amy Tan.