Before he discovered my age, he uncovered my heart. Bruised and abused, and victim to a loveless household, I shimmered with new life the moment he found me drowning my sorrows in a lake beneath the stars. A chance encounter. An unspoken connection. I was smitten; he was curious. But, as everyone knew, fate could be decidedly cruel. He called me Halley, like the comet. I called him Reed. And my best friend?Well?she called him Dad. Older is a forbidden, slow-burn, age-gap romance standalone, ending in an HEA.