Stay With Me: A small-town, single dad, slow-burn, medical romance ~ Alex & Lily's Story (Hearts of Hope Bay #3)

Two lines, one knee, and a mistake that could ruin everything.

Six months into their not-quite-family life in Hope Bay, Dr. Lily Carter should feel safe. She has a rhythm the community hospital, Mae’s harbour café, and the cottage that has started to feel less like Alex’s place and more like theirs. Even Sam has stopped asking whether she’s “staying” and started assuming she is.

Then Lily sees two pink lines and her careful balance cracks. Joy is there, bright and terrifying, but fear follows close behind. Because pregnancy doesn’t just change bodies, it changes everything... and Lily has been someone’s convenient option before. She will not be anyone’s obligation.

Dr. Alex Maguire has been quietly planning forever. He’s been saving, searching, and working up the courage to ask Lily for the kind of future that doesn’t come with an exit route. But before he can do it right, one stupid moment at the practice is seen the wrong way, and Lily’s old instincts kick in hard. A packed bag. A train platform. The kind of leaving that feels like self-defence.

Now Alex has to catch her before she disappears into the life she once ran from, and prove that this isn’t duty, or panic, or a proposal made out of fear. It’s choice. It’s love. And it’s home.

Stay With Me is Book Three in the Hearts of Hope Bay series and the emotional conclusion to Alex & Lily’s a heartfelt, slow-burn, open-door contemporary romance set on the British coast, with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.

• an unexpected pregnancy and a terrified, tender proposal
• a guarded single-dad GP who finally stops being “fine”
• a junior doctor choosing herself (and her home) on purpose
• a red-headed six-year-old with dinosaur facts and Lego priorities
• meddling friends, small-town gossip, and found family holding the line
• angst, comfort, laughter, and a warm, satisfying HEA

Alex and Lily’s story continues across the Hearts of Hope Bay books, each ending with a hopeful HFN as they move towards their full HEA.