An attorney. A billionaire. A secret relationship. And a lie that brings an ugly legal battle, and a promise to end it all…with just one signature. Of course, I didn’t plan on seeing Chas Ford outside of the office, and it’s his fault, if you want the truth. He and his brothers clearly have some so-called iron clad plan to test future business associates. And me, being their new lawyer, is next to take that test. It’s innocent and transparent at first, but then something happens that throws us both off. My lawyer friend Tanya doesn’t know the half of it, but as we meet for our regular Friday lunch, it seems that now we’ve both got secrets in the bag. She being the one dating some mystery man, and me knee deep in Chas, and elbow deep in trouble with his other brothers. Do you think I passed the Ford Brothers’ test? I won’t know until someone signs on the dotted line… *** It’s a bad idea from the start. Me being on a date with our client’s EA, that is. But after the meeting today, there isn’t much choice. With my foot in my mouth and my ass being handed to me, I stew in my own stupidity, as I order her steak and red wine. Worst part is, she doesn’t take the hint, and I end up in hot water with my brothers and with Ericka. With two women on my case, one I can’t stand, the other I can’t stand to be without, let’s just say that I learned a hard lesson. But, as if that isn’t enough, foolishly, while I think I can salvage my reputation with my brothers, a threatening document arrives at my doorstep, begging for more blood, dragging all ten of us in for one last hoorah. Will the party end before it even gets started? HEA (Happily Ever After) Billionaire romance Friends to lovers romance Military romance Medium heat Course language Cliffhanger ending

Can't get enough of the first five Ford brothers? Great news! There are five more hot, billionaire brothers! Buckle up!

There’s a glaring vacuum in the 2024 political debate—No party or candidate offers a governing vision that deals with the root causes of alienation and failure. Something basic is missing in our culture. Americans know it. Nothing much works as it should. Simple daily choices seem impossible, or fraught with peril. In the workplace, we walk on eggshells. Big projects—say, modernizing infrastructure—get stalled in years of review. Endemic social problems such as homelessness become, well, more endemic. Everyday Freedom pinpoints the source of powerlessness that is fraying American culture and causing public failure, and offers a bold vision of simpler governing frameworks to re-empower Americans in their daily choices. “Everyday Freedom shows us how to break out of the spiral of decreasing trust, confidence, and capability,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt concludes, “and re-invigorate our institutions, our governments, and ourselves.” Everyday Freedom diagnoses our collective futility as resulting from a deliberate change in governing philosophy: The assault on authority after the 1960s, aimed at enhancing freedom, instead created a plague of powerlessness. The teacher in the classroom, the principal in a school, the nurse in the hospital, the official in Washington, the parent on a field trip, the head of a local charity or church…all have their hands tied. Things don’t work, and Americans have lost the freedom to be themselves. That’s the main reason America is in a downward spiral of alienation and extremism. Who has a vision to revive hope and action? Not political leaders, who are picking the scab of resentment. Social media gets rich selling distrust. Stop the Steal! Defund the Police! Everyday Freedom, in the tradition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, offers a radical vision for change: Re-empower Americans in their everyday choices. The massive legal structures erected since the 1960s were based on flawed notions that human judgment could be replaced by elaborate dictates. Area by area, these failed structures must be replaced with simpler frameworks activated by human responsibility and accountability. Nothing will work sensibly until Americans are free to draw on their skills, intuitions and values when confronting daily challenges. This is the only cure to alienation. This is also the only way to deliver good government. Philip Howard’s understanding of the essential role of human agency has been embraced by some of America’s leading economists, jurists, social psychologists and philosophers.

Law and Society, Fourth Edition, offers a contemporary overview of the structure and function of legal institutions, along with a lively discussion of both criminal and civil law and their impact on society. Unlike other books on law and society, Matthew Lippman takes an interdisciplinary approach that highlights the relevance of the law throughout our society. Distinctive coverage of diversity, inequality, civil liberties, and globalism is intertwined through an organized theme in a strong narrative. The highly anticipated Fourth Edition of this practical and invigorating text introduces students to both the influence of law on society and the influence of society on the law. Discussions of the pressing issues facing today′s society include key topics such as the law and inequality, international human rights, privacy and surveillance, and law and social control.

You’re cool, you're confident, you’re a CosmoGIRL!—and you’re the shining star of these fun and insightful quizzes. What do your clothes say about you? What first impression do you give? You are your own favorite subject, and there’s no better way to study it than with questions like these: “What Ice Cream Flavor Are You?” No—it’s not about what you like to eat, it's about what kind of person you are. Just test yourself and see: On a Saturday afternoon, you’d most prefer: a. Biking in the park b. Writing poetry and playing your guitar c. Scoping out cute guys at the mall d. Shopping with friends Your choices will show if you're a comfortable, friendly vanilla; intense coffee, romantic and creative chocolate, or lively, lovable strawberry • Advertising and Promotion in CosmoGirl! magazine.

America is highly polarized around elections, but unelected actors make many of the decisions that affect our lives. In this lucid history, James R. Copland explains how unaccountable agents have taken over much of the U.S. government apparatus. Congress has largely abdicated its authority. “Independent” administrative agencies churn out thousands of new regulations every year. Courts have enabled these rulemakers to expand their powers beyond those authorized by law—and have constrained executive efforts to rein in the bureaucratic behemoth. No ordinary citizen can know what is legal and what is not. There are some 300,000 federal crimes, 98 percent of which were created by administrative action. The proliferation of rules gives enormous discretion to unelected enforcers, and the severity of sanctions can be ruinous to citizens who unwittingly violate a regulation. Outside the bureaucracy, private attorneys regulate our conduct through lawsuits. Most of the legal theories underlying these suits were never voted upon by our elected representatives. A combination of historical accident, decisions by judges and law professors, and self-interested advocacy by litigators has built an onerous and expensive legal regime. Finally, state and local officials may be accountable to their own voters, but some reach further afield, pursuing agendas to dictate the terms of national commerce. These new antifederalists are subjecting the citizens of Wyoming and Mississippi to the whims of the electorates of New York and San Francisco—contrary to the constitutional design. In these ways, the unelected have assumed substantial control of the American republic, upended the rule of law, given the United States the world’s costliest legal system, and inverted the Constitution’s federalism. Copland caps off his account with ideas for charting a corrective course back to democratic accountability.

What if it were the other way around, and homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuals were pushed into the shadows? During his twice-weekly sessions, Guy, a sixty-seven-year-old anthropologist, tells Richard, his thirty-two-year-old psychiatrist, a fantastic tale about a society where almost everyone is homosexual and sex is considered the most basic form of communication. As a young man, on a cargo ship that sinks in the Bermuda Triangle, Guy is saved by the first mate, Luca, and they wash up on the shore of an uncharted tropical island. There, Guy must undergo a brutal initiation ritual and swim across shark-infested waters in order to win the love of a local man. Meanwhile, Luca, unable to accept his sexuality, becomes obsessed with being rescued and soon degenerates into drug dependency. Serious trouble ensues when Luca discovers that the locals have a large stash of gold, and he devises a plan to steal it. When Luca’s scheme falls apart, Guy must choose between remaining on the island with the man he loves or saving Luca’s life. Could there really be such a society, or does it only exist within the fantasy of a lonely old gay man?

Exploring Enlightenment attitudes toward things and their relation to human subjects, this collection offers a geographically wide-ranging perspective on what the eighteenth century looked like beyond British or British-colonial borders. To highlight trends, fashions, and cultural imports of truly global significance, the contributors draw their case studies from Western Europe, Russia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. This survey underscores the multifarious ways in which new theoretical approaches, such as thing theory or material and visual culture studies, revise our understanding of the people and objects that inhabit the phenomenological spaces of the eighteenth century. Rather than focusing on a particular geographical area, or on the global as a juxtaposition of regions with a distinctive cultural footprint, this collection draws attention to the unforeseen relational maps drawn by things in their global peregrinations, celebrating the logic of serendipity that transforms the object into some-thing else when it is placed in a new locale.

This new edition continues to provide a critical introduction to the legal regulation of consumer markets, situating it within the context of broader debates about rationales for regulation, the role of the state and the growth of neo-liberalism. It draws on interdisciplinary sources, assessing, for example, the increased influence of behavioural economics on consumer law. It analyses the Europeanisation of consumer law and the tensions between neo-liberalism and the social market, consumer protection and consumer choice, in the establishment of the single market ground rules. The book also assesses national, regional and international responses to the world financial crisis as reflected in the regulation of consumer credit markets. This edition incorporates recent legislative and judicial developments of the law, blending substantial extracts from primary UK, EU and international legal materials.