Thrilling Romances #19

A seventeen-year-old girl's infatuation with her thirty-year-old geology teacher spirals into obsession when she misreads a casual invitation for a field trip as something more, weaving her own fantasies around innocent moments and pushing away everyone else in her life. As her web of self-deception grows, she finds herself trapped between the romantic dreams she's constructed and a reality that threatens to shatter them entirely. "I Wanted the Moon" explores how a young woman's desperate need to believe in something extraordinary can blind her to the damage her actions cause.

A young woman receives an elegant betrothal ring with a hidden compartment for perfume—a romantic custom from colonial times—and decides to fill it with a precious fragrance her father brought from the Indies. As she prepares for an evening ball, the scent becomes the centerpiece of a tender moment between her and her beloved.

When Peter receives an expensive cigarette case from his new friend Gwen on his birthday, he's left anxious about what the lavish gift might imply—worried she's pushing their friendship toward something he doesn't feel ready for. But when another girl, Chick, takes a smarter approach to gift-giving on Jim's birthday, she discovers that sometimes the smallest gesture can speak volumes about understanding someone's heart.

When Vera Spenser's rival business opens directly across from her art supplies shop, she sees red—until she realizes the competition might be exactly what her hardened heart needs. Two years after being jilted at the altar, Vera has built a thriving business on independence and self-reliance, but meeting the charming Brant Meridith forces her to confront the loneliness she's been running from. A stolen painting, a frame job gone wrong, and an unexpected rescue become the unlikely spark that thaws the ice around Vera's carefully guarded world.

A young woman caught between her mother's protective grip and her desperate love for Larry Randall discovers how quickly stolen moments and secret meetings can spiral into a test she never expected to face. When her mother finally discovers the truth, Nan must choose between the life she's been sheltered into and the life her heart demands—but Larry has other plans about how they'll resolve it together. Their love is real, but so are the consequences of defying her mother's warnings, and tonight everything comes to a breaking point.

When Ginny helps Mark Wilson find an apartment in town and introduces him to Midston's social circle, she assumes the handsome young lawyer will naturally fall for her—after all, she saw him first. But Ginny's certainty that Mark belongs to her soon blinds her to the truth, and one misunderstanding fueled by jealousy threatens to destroy any chance of real affection between them. A story about the price of possessiveness and the lesson that forcing a grateful heart rarely works.