Model Behavior by Stephanie Thornne

At eighteen, Valentina Thorndyke is already a veteran of the modeling industry. She’s traveled the world, been on magazine covers, and the face of makeup and fragrance brands. Her existence has been structured toward success, money and fame, but she turns her back on it all to enroll in a high school a thousand miles north of Los Angeles, for a chance to be normal. It’s also to get away from the tight grip her mother has on her life, and to escape a powerful man that holds her deepest secret over her. The last person she expects to see teaching in her classroom is her ex-boyfriend’s older brother, Ethan Hughes. They’d had a moment earlier in the summer where she felt a bolt of lightening in seeing him again, but the electricity fizzled when Ethan shot her down. But now, it seems very likely that lightening will strike twice.

Ethan Hughes has always tried to follow the rules, to be a good son and brother, a credit to the Hughes name. It’s why, when he crossed paths with Valentina earlier in the summer, he tamped down the sudden, intense feelings he had for her. Not only had she broken his brother’s heart, but she was only eighteen and still in high school, while he’d turned twenty-three and was pursuing a master’s degree. And besides, Ethan’s guilt for a past mistake has him believing he’s unworthy of love and happiness. But when Valentina arrives in the class he’s helping to teach, it may be impossible to resist his feelings for her.

As Ethan and Valentina’s relationship progresses, they’ll have to confide their secrets in one another if they have any chance of defeating their external foes.