Some people leave your life.
Others leave fingerprints on your heart that never really fade.

Ivy Vale returns to her coastal hometown for her father’s funeral expecting grief, guilt, and old memories. What she doesn’t expect is Adrian Cross — the quiet, guarded hotel owner who seems to understand every broken part of her without asking questions she can’t answer.

But coming home means facing more than the past.

Her family business is drowning in debt. Rumors spread faster than the ocean wind. And the closer Ivy gets to Adrian, the more she realizes he’s hiding tragedies of his own — including a vanished fiancée, secrets buried inside a cliffside mansion, and guilt he wears like armor.

What begins as an arrangement built on necessity slowly turns into something neither of them planned:
late-night confessions, fake smiles that feel too real, almost-kisses, impossible choices, and a love both of them are terrified to trust.

Kiss Me Like a Lie is an emotional slow-burn romance about grief, second chances, emotional scars, and the kind of love that survives even after people try to destroy it.

For readers who love deeply human romance with tension, vulnerability, coastal atmosphere, and characters who feel painfully real long after the final page.