"Pinky swear that no matter what happens, you'll always tell me the truth."Maya Chen was seventeen when Jamie Russo hooked his little finger around hers beside a dying bonfire and promised.No lies. No disappearing.He disappeared anyway.Now Maya is back in Ashford, Oregon — population three thousand and dropping — running the coffee shop she always swore she'd open, half-raising her little sister, holding her family together one shift at a time.She built a life out of the pieces he left behind.Then the door she swore she'd never open opens.And there he is. Jamie Russo. Older, sharper, a ghost in her espresso machine, carrying secrets she can smell on him like bonfire smoke.He needs something from her. She needs something from him.And the lie they agree to tell the whole town to get it — that they're together again, like nothing ever broke — is the most dangerous truth either of them has ever risked.Because pretending to love Jamie Russo feels far too much like remembering.He charmed everyone once. He performed for everyone. But Maya was the only one who ever made him promise the real truth.The trouble is, the realest truth of all is the one he's been hiding since the night he left — and it has Maya's name written all over it."I'd find you," he told her once. "I'd look in every diner between here and Seattle."He never did. And now he's standing in her shop asking her to trust him again, when trust is the one thing he taught her to live without.What we said after midnight built them. What he didn't say nearly destroyed them.Now, with a secret big enough to break them both, Maya has to decide whether some broken promises can be remade — or whether love is just one more thing this town takes away.Coffee and Confessions is a tender, slow-burn small-town romance about a fake relationship, a secret that changes everything, friends-to-lovers history, workplace tension, and a love story that demands the truth before it can earn a second chance.Perfect for readers who love fake-relationship romance, small-town second chances, friends-to-lovers slow burns, emotional reunions, and a hero who has to win back the one he left behind. A standalone romance with a heartfelt happy ending.