Book excerpt: Sage is the ideal girl—young and intelligent with many goals and ambitions. Graduating high school two years early, she follows her heart and ambitions to DC to attend college while staying close to her first love. Two years in, she’s heartbroken when her boyfriend does everything but give her a faithful and honest love. Refusing to let his infidelities break her, she vows never to let another get close enough to break her heart. It’s a perfect plan that has her feeling strong, independent, and on top of her game, until she comes face to face with a temptation she can’t resist. Her mind tells her to run the other way, but her heart has her hooked on a vibe she can’t let go. Will she risk it all for another shot at love? Theophilus London, better known as Op, is determined to change the course of his life. Recently returning to school to finish a degree in business, he vows to stay as far away from the family business as possible because he wants so much more than the street life. When a family situation takes an unexpected turn for the worse, Op sees the opportunity to use book smarts to run his family’s street empire like no other. Turns out that school is kicking Op’s butt, and just when he’s ready to throw his hands up and go with plan B, a fine, tempting reinforcement falls right into his lap, making him want to major in the mastery of all things Sage. When their pasts refuse to let them go, they find themselves fighting for the freedom to explore their new love, fighting to shake the very people that broke their hearts in the first place. One wrong step traps Op in a lose-lose position that leaves Sage questioning everything she thought she knew about him. Meanwhile, Sage falls into a setup that she never saw coming until it was too late. Can two broken hearts mend each other? Will Op and Sage be able to put the pieces of one another back together without fumbling them? Will the complete truth resolve all their problems or make an unusual situation even worse? These questions and more will be answered in the first part of the Turned out by a Certified Boss trilogy.