Sarah Morgan: Friends-to-lovers isn't as easy as it sounds

Sarah Morgan, author of Maybe This Christmas, plays with a friends-to-lovers trope in her new release, book three in her O'Neil Brothers series.

Sarah: Every romance story is basically "boy meets girl" (or girl meets boy!), but what happens when boy has known girl for his whole life? One of my favorite movies is When Harry Met Sally because it charts so perfectly the deliciously complicated steps of moving from friends to lovers.

Maybe This Christmas, the third book in my O'Neil Brothers series, is a friends-to-lovers story. Sexy downhill skier Tyler O'Neil has a wicked reputation with women. His daredevil exploits on the slopes have earned him plenty of female fans, but the only woman who has stayed in his life is his best friend, Brenna.

Brenna's feelings go much deeper than friendship. She's loved Tyler forever, and has tried to accept that he will only ever see her as a friend. But when a heavy snowfall brings an influx of visitors to Snow Crystal Resort and she is forced to move in with Tyler, everything changes. A relationship that has been comfortable, becomes uncomfortable. She's played by a set of rules, but suddenly those don't apply.

Brenna wasn't good at flirting. And anyway, how did you flirt with someone you'd known all your life? Tyler had seen her soaked to the skin and exhausted after a day in the mountains. He'd dragged her out of ditches and picked her up when she'd wiped out on her skis. He knew everything about her. They had no secrets. She could imagine his reaction if she'd fluttered her eyelashes or made a sexual comment. He'd either laugh or run for the hills.

The path from friends to lovers is littered with awkward moments and Brenna discovers that something simple like dressing in sexy underwear can turn into a mortifying experience when you're wearing it for someone who carried your school bag.

She looked ridiculous.

If she walked into Tyler's room looking like this, he'd laugh. She could imagine his expression.

And then the door to her bedroom opened and she didn't have to imagine his expression because he was standing in the doorway looking as if he'd been caught in the path of an avalanche. And there was no sign of laughter.

'Tyler! What are you doing here? Get out.' She dropped her arms and tried to cover herself, then snatched the damp towel from the floor but it caught in her foot and she crashed to the ground in a tangle of long limbs and black transparent underwear.

Moving from friends to lovers is a high-risk strategy. When you embark on a new relationship and it doesn't work out, your best friends give you a hug and you move on. But what happens when the relationship in question is with your best friend? If it crashes and burns you haven't just lost the promise of something more, you risk losing a real and important relationship. Once you've crossed that line there is no going back. For Tyler, who has never made a relationship work in his life, the stakes are high.

He lay still, adjusting to the strange and unfamiliar experience of having a woman in his bed at Lake House. And not any woman.

Brenna.

His best friend. Except that what they shared could no longer be defined as friendship, could it? They were lovers. And he wasn't stupid enough to think that didn't change everything.

He'd done the one thing he's sworn he would never do.

But despite the risks, there are real advantages to being with someone you already know well. You enjoy each other's company, talk about everything and make each other laugh. You fight without worrying that it might mean the end of your relationship. But despite so much shared history, Brenna discovers one important thing — that even when you think you know everything about someone, they can still surprise you.

Here's the blurb about Maybe This Christmas (courtesy of Harlequin HQN):

This winter, ex-skiing champion, reformed heartbreaker and single dad Tyler O'Neil has only one mission—making sure his daughter, Jess, has the best Christmas ever. The fact that his best friend, Brenna, is also temporarily moving into his chalet at the overbooked Snow Crystal resort is a delicious distraction he's simply going to have to ignore. Theirs is the one relationship he's never ruined, and he's not about to start now.

Ski pro Brenna Daniels knows all about the perils of unrequited love—she's been in love with Tyler for years. But living with him is absolute torture… How can she concentrate on being his friend when he's sleeping in the room next door? Then when Tyler kisses Brenna, suddenly the relationship she's always dreamed of feels so close she could almost touch it. Could this be the Christmas her dreams of a happy-ever-after finally come true?

Find out more about Sarah and her books at www.sararahmorgan.com.