Wildest Dreams by L.J. Shen takes one of my favorite romance setups, a fake relationship between two people who can barely tolerate each other, and makes it messier by adding a single mother, her brother’s infuriating best friend, years of mutual irritation, an ex who won’t take the hint, and two people who have very different reasons for pretending to be engaged.
On paper, Dylan Casablancas and Rhyland Coltridge should be able to handle this. He needs to convince an important business contact that he’s stable enough to be husband material, while Dylan needs someone convincing enough to make her clingy ex understand that she has moved on. A fake engagement solves both problems, and all they have to do is follow the rules until Rhyland’s deal is complete.
Unfortunately, they also have to spend time together.
That would be easier if the hostility between them weren’t carrying an enormous amount of attraction underneath it. What begins as banter, irritation, and mutually beneficial pretending gradually becomes much harder to categorize once fake kisses stop feeling fake and Rhyland starts discovering that Dylan and her daughter fit into his life far too easily.
For me, that’s where Wildest Dreams works best. L.J. Shen gives us the outrageous chemistry and sharp banter I expected, but underneath all of it is a story about a woman who has spent years proving she doesn’t need anyone and a man who has built his life around making sure nobody ever needs too much from him.
Fake engagement turns out to be the easy part. Real vulnerability is considerably more dangerous.
Wildest Dreams Quick Review
Wildest Dreams is the second book in L.J. Shen’s Forbidden Love series, following Truly Madly Deeply and preceding Handsome Devil. It follows Dylan Casablancas, a 26-year-old single mother trying to create a new life for herself and her daughter, Gravity, and Rhyland Coltridge, her brother’s best friend and a notorious playboy who suddenly needs to convince a business partner that he’s capable of settling down.
The romance combines fake engagement, enemies to lovers, brother’s best friend, single mom, forced proximity, reformed playboy, found family, and some exceptionally sharp banter. It’s also an interconnected standalone, so Dylan and Rhyland receive a complete romantic arc without requiring readers to finish the rest of the series.
What surprised me most is how much heart exists underneath the chaos. Rhyland may begin as a hedonistic playboy who insists relationships aren’t for him, but Dylan and Gravity force him to confront the difference between enjoying a life with no attachments and actually having nothing worth coming home to.
Wildest Dreams Summary
Dylan Casablancas is starting over.
At twenty-six, she’s already a single mother, and almost every decision she makes revolves around protecting her daughter, Gravity. She’s trying to build a stable life after disappointment and betrayal, which means romance is fairly low on her list of priorities, and depending on another man is even lower.
Her move from small-town Maine to New York should represent a fresh beginning. Instead, it puts her directly in Rhyland Coltridge’s orbit.
Rhyland is her older brother’s best friend, which already makes him inconveniently off-limits. He’s also arrogant, indulgent, infuriatingly confident, and exactly the sort of emotionally unavailable man Dylan has no intention of allowing into the life she has built for herself and her daughter.
Then they become neighbors.
Rhyland is pursuing a major business opportunity, but his prospective partner wants to see the kind of stability that Rhyland’s playboy reputation definitely doesn’t suggest. When that partner mistakenly assumes Dylan and Rhyland are a couple, Rhyland suddenly has the perfect solution to his image problem.
Dylan happens to have a problem of her own.
Her ex won’t leave her alone, and pretending to be happily engaged to someone else could finally make the message clear.
So they make a deal.
Rhyland gets a convincing fiancée who makes him look considerably more respectable, while Dylan gets a very convincing barrier between herself and an ex she wants out of her life. The engagement is fake, the arrangement is temporary, and both of them understand exactly when it’s supposed to end.
Naturally, almost none of that survives contact with reality.
Living so close to each other creates an intimacy neither anticipated. The insults and sarcastic exchanges keep coming, but so do moments where Rhyland sees the exhausted mother beneath Dylan’s defenses and Dylan begins noticing that the selfish playboy she thought she understood is capable of showing up in ways she never expected.
Gravity complicates everything further.
Rhyland isn’t simply getting involved with Dylan. Loving a single mother means understanding that her daughter isn’t an obstacle to the relationship or a separate part of Dylan’s life that can be conveniently ignored.
Dylan comes with Gravity.
The more comfortable Rhyland becomes inside their little family, the harder it becomes to keep insisting that anything between them is pretend.
The engagement may have begun as a lie for other people.
Eventually, Dylan and Rhyland become the only two people still trying to believe it.
Wildest Dreams Characters
The characters are the strongest part of Wildest Dreams for me because both Dylan and Rhyland are allowed to be difficult in completely different ways. Neither needs to be reduced to the sensible heroine and irresponsible playboy long enough for the romance to work, because Shen allows their contradictions to remain visible even while they’re falling for each other.
Dylan’s responsibilities have taught her to guard what little stability she has, while Rhyland’s lifestyle has taught him to guard his freedom. Their conflict works because both characters believe they’re protecting something essential, even when those defenses are keeping them from recognizing what they actually want.
Dylan Casablancas
Dylan is a 26-year-old single mother who has spent enough time being disappointed by other people that self-reliance has become almost inseparable from her identity. Her daughter, Gravity, is the center of her world, and every romantic decision has to pass through the question of whether it makes their lives safer, easier, or more complicated.
That gives Dylan’s resistance to Rhyland much more weight than a simple enemies-to-lovers setup. She isn’t merely afraid that her brother will disapprove or that getting involved with his best friend could become awkward. She has a child depending on her, and reckless romantic choices no longer affect only Dylan.
I especially liked that motherhood doesn’t erase her sexuality or frustration. Dylan loves Gravity completely, but that doesn’t mean she stops wanting things for herself, resenting the weight she carries, or wondering what her life might look like if responsibility didn’t have to come first every single time.
Those conflicting emotions make her feel human.
Dylan can adore her daughter and still be tired. She can be fiercely independent and still secretly wish someone else would carry part of the load. She can know Rhyland is probably a terrible idea and still want him.
That messiness is one of her greatest strengths as a character.
Rhyland Coltridge
Rhyland begins the story much closer to the classic L.J. Shen playboy archetype. He’s indulgent, confident, sexually experienced, accustomed to getting what he wants, and entirely convinced that permanent relationships are something other people choose.
His life works because very little is allowed to become indispensable.
Then Dylan moves downstairs.
What makes Rhyland more interesting than his reputation is the gradual realization that emotional detachment isn’t the same thing as emotional strength. He has built a life where very little can hurt him because very little is allowed close enough to matter.
Dylan destroys that arrangement.
Her resistance fascinates him because she isn’t interested in becoming another person impressed by his charm. Gravity complicates things further because she introduces a form of attachment Rhyland can’t handle using his normal romantic rules.
- He can flirt with Dylan.
- He can antagonize her.
- He can sleep with her.
Becoming attached to the shape of her everyday life is something else entirely.
That transformation is where Rhyland worked best for me. He doesn’t wake up one morning magically converted into a completely different man, but the pleasures that once seemed sufficient begin looking considerably emptier beside the possibility of belonging somewhere.
Gravity
Gravity is Dylan’s daughter, and I’m glad the book treats her as an actual part of Dylan’s life rather than a convenient accessory used to label the story a single-mom romance.
She changes the stakes.
Rhyland isn’t only being evaluated as someone Dylan finds attractive. Whether he can be trusted around the most important person in her life matters far more than whether their physical chemistry is spectacular.
That distinction gives the romance another emotional layer. Dylan can gamble with her own heart if she wants. She’s much less willing to gamble with Gravity’s.
Rhyland’s developing relationship with Dylan therefore has to include an understanding that he isn’t entering the life of one person. If he wants Dylan permanently, he has to understand and respect the family she already created before he arrived.
Dylan and Rhyland’s Relationship
The chemistry between Dylan and Rhyland is immediate, but I wouldn’t call the relationship instant love. They annoy each other too much for that.
Their history comes with irritation, resentment, familiarity, and the particular kind of tension that develops when two people have spent a long time noticing each other while insisting they don’t particularly like what they see.
The fake engagement gives them an excuse to cross boundaries they normally wouldn’t. Now they’re supposed to touch. They’re supposed to look convincing in public. They’re supposed to behave like two people who know each other intimately.
The problem is that pretending creates opportunities for honesty.
Once Rhyland sees Dylan in the ordinary rhythms of motherhood, he encounters parts of her that sarcastic arguments never revealed. Once Dylan sees Rhyland when he isn’t performing the carefree playboy for everyone else, she has to reconsider assumptions that have protected her from taking him seriously.
Their physical attraction is intense, but the emotional relationship becomes more compelling once both characters realize they’re no longer pretending for the same reasons they started.
Rhyland needs the arrangement for business. Dylan needs it because of her ex. Eventually, neither reason explains why they keep finding excuses to stay close.
The Fake Engagement Trope Actually Matters
I like fake-dating stories best when the fake relationship solves a genuine problem instead of existing because the author needs an excuse to put two attractive people in the same room.
Wildest Dreams gives both characters believable reasons to agree.
Rhyland needs to convince a prospective business partner that he’s capable of being stable and dependable. Dylan wants her persistent ex to accept that their relationship is over, and an engagement to someone as publicly convincing as Rhyland provides a very effective message.
That makes their deal mutually beneficial from the beginning. Neither character is doing the other a favor. Both are using the arrangement.
The fun comes from watching two people who think they’re controlling the situation discover that emotional intimacy doesn’t follow contract terms. They can decide when the engagement ends. They can’t schedule when feelings stop.
Wildest Dreams Tropes
The publisher identifies the major tropes as fake engagement, best friend’s little sister, single-mom heroine, reformed playboy, found family, forced proximity, and heavy banter. The enemies-to-lovers element is also central to Dylan and Rhyland’s relationship, particularly because the fake engagement forces two people with substantial existing friction into much closer contact.
- Fake engagement
- Enemies to lovers
- Brother’s best friend
- Best friend’s little sister
- Single-mom romance
- Reformed playboy
- Forced proximity
- Neighbors
- Found family
- Fake relationship turns real
- He falls hard
- Sharp banter
- New York romance
- High-heat contemporary romance
The combination works because most of these tropes reinforce one another instead of competing for attention. Dylan’s motherhood makes Rhyland’s reformed-playboy arc more meaningful, while the brother’s-best-friend connection adds another reason they should avoid becoming real just when the fake engagement makes avoiding each other impossible.
Is Wildest Dreams a Single Mom Romance?
Yes, and motherhood is much more than a label attached to Dylan.
Gravity influences where Dylan lives, what risks she takes, how she evaluates people, and what she needs from a relationship. The publisher specifically describes Dylan’s role as a mother as central to the story rather than decorative.
That’s exactly how it reads.
Dylan doesn’t get to make romantic decisions with only desire in mind. She needs reliability as much as chemistry, and Rhyland initially looks much better suited to providing one-night entertainment than permanent stability.
Watching him challenge that assumption becomes a major part of the romance.
Is Wildest Dreams a Brother’s Best Friend Romance?
Yes. Rhyland is the best friend of Dylan’s older brother, which places him firmly in forbidden territory before the fake engagement even begins.
I liked that the trope adds history to their hostility.
Rhyland isn’t a random stranger Dylan meets in New York. He exists within her family orbit, which means both characters already have opinions, assumptions, and boundaries surrounding each other before the romantic plot starts.
That familiarity makes the enemies-to-lovers transition more convincing. They don’t need to learn enough about each other to become irritated. They’re already there.
The Banter Is One of the Best Parts
Dylan and Rhyland communicate through combat almost as often as they communicate honestly.
Their dialogue is sarcastic, sexually charged, occasionally immature, and frequently very funny. The publisher itself emphasizes the heavy banter as one of the book’s central attractions, and I can see why.
The humor also prevents the emotional material from becoming too heavy.
Dylan carries real exhaustion and anxiety around motherhood and independence, while Rhyland’s avoidance of emotional attachment comes from places considerably more complicated than simple arrogance.
Their verbal sparring allows the book to move between vulnerability and entertainment without making either feel out of place.
More importantly, the banter changes as the relationship changes.
Early insults are defensive. Later jokes become intimate.
Eventually, knowing exactly how to irritate someone becomes almost indistinguishable from knowing exactly how to make them smile.
How Spicy Is Wildest Dreams?
Wildest Dreams is definitely a high-heat adult romance.
The publisher describes explicit on-page sexual content and frank language, and the physical chemistry between Dylan and Rhyland is a significant part of the relationship.
What makes the spice effective is the amount of tension Shen builds before letting the characters act on it.
These two have spent so much time antagonizing each other that physical intimacy feels like another battle neither intends to lose.
The fake relationship makes that even more complicated. They’re already performing affection publicly.
Once the physical attraction becomes real privately, they lose one of the easiest ways of distinguishing the arrangement from the relationship.
The line between acting and wanting becomes increasingly useless.
Rhyland’s Playboy Reputation Makes His Arc Better
The reformed-playboy trope only works for me when the hero’s transformation involves more than deciding one woman is attractive enough to inspire monogamy.
Rhyland’s change goes deeper because Dylan’s life forces him to confront what commitment actually means.
Dylan isn’t available for a relationship built entirely around spontaneity and pleasure.
She has Gravity. She has responsibilities. She needs someone whose presence makes her life more secure, not someone who adds another unpredictable variable.
Rhyland therefore has to become capable of showing up. That’s considerably more meaningful than declaring himself obsessed. Desire comes easily to him. Reliability doesn’t. Watching him discover that he wants to become dependable for Dylan and Gravity gives his emotional arc its weight.
Independence Is One of Dylan’s Biggest Strengths and Weaknesses
Dylan has good reasons for wanting control over her own life.
She has already experienced disappointment and has a daughter who depends on her, so relying on another person can feel less like romance and more like creating another opportunity for disaster.
That makes independence protective. It can also become isolating.
One of the things I appreciated about the book is that Dylan isn’t punished for being independent. Her emotional journey isn’t about admitting that she secretly needed a man to solve everything. Instead, she has to confront the possibility that accepting genuine partnership isn’t the same thing as surrendering control.
Rhyland has to earn the right to become part of the life she’s built.
Dylan has to decide whether refusing every form of help is still protecting her or simply protecting old wounds. That gives their romance a surprisingly tender emotional center beneath all the sexual humor and hostility.
What I Loved About Wildest Dreams
The contrast between the setup and the emotional payoff worked particularly well for me.
A fake engagement between a playboy and his best friend’s mouthy little sister sounds like it should be almost entirely chaotic fun, and there’s plenty of that. The book has strong chemistry, ridiculous situations, sharp dialogue, and two characters who seem physically incapable of letting the other person win an argument.
Then Shen gives the story more heart than I expected.
Dylan’s role as a mother changes how I read almost every romantic decision she makes. Rhyland’s relationship with Gravity makes his developing feelings for Dylan impossible to dismiss as another sexual obsession. The found-family elements gradually become just as important as the attraction.
I also appreciated that Dylan remains complicated. Motherhood doesn’t make her endlessly patient or selfless. She’s allowed to be angry, exhausted, jealous, horny, insecure, loving, stubborn, and occasionally unreasonable.
That makes her considerably more interesting than a heroine whose single-mom status exists primarily to prove how noble she is.
Rhyland gets similar room to be messy. His charm doesn’t erase his selfishness, but his selfishness doesn’t prevent him from becoming capable of real attachment.
Their flaws create the romance rather than getting polished away by it.
What Might Not Work for Every Reader
The banter is aggressive enough that readers who dislike couples constantly insulting and provoking each other may find Dylan and Rhyland exhausting.
Their antagonism is part of the chemistry, and the book doesn’t suddenly transform them into gentle communicators once attraction becomes impossible to ignore.
The sexual content is also explicit, so this isn’t a good fit for readers looking for closed-door or low-spice romance. The publisher additionally flags heavier material involving abuse, sexual assault, child endangerment, anxiety, injury, and strong language, so readers sensitive to those subjects should check the detailed content warnings before starting.
For me, the tonal swings generally worked because humor gives the characters somewhere to breathe between heavier moments.
Other readers may prefer the story to remain either lighter or darker rather than shifting between both.
Does Wildest Dreams Have a Happy Ending?
Yes. Dylan and Rhyland receive resolution for their central romantic arc, and the publisher identifies Wildest Dreams as a complete standalone rather than a book that leaves their relationship hanging for the next installment.
That matters because Forbidden Love is an interconnected series rather than one continuous romance.
You can finish Dylan and Rhyland’s story here and move into Handsome Devil for a different central couple.
Does Wildest Dreams End on a Cliffhanger?
No. The main romantic storyline between Dylan and Rhyland is resolved within Wildest Dreams, so readers don’t have to continue immediately into another book to get the conclusion to their relationship.
There is a connection to the broader L.J. Shen universe, and later characters can appear across interconnected books.
That gives series readers extra familiarity without turning Dylan and Rhyland’s romance into an incomplete story.
Is Wildest Dreams a Standalone?
Yes. Wildest Dreams is Book 2 of the Forbidden Love series, but L.J. Shen describes her books in this interconnected universe as standalones that can be read independently. Readers who enjoy following the larger LJverse may get additional context from reading in order, but it isn’t required to understand Dylan and Rhyland.
That makes this a particularly easy entry point if the fake-engagement or single-mom tropes appeal to you more than the premise of Truly Madly Deeply.
You aren’t being dropped into the middle of an unfinished couple’s story.
Forbidden Love Series Reading Order
L.J. Shen currently lists Truly Madly Deeply, Wildest Dreams, and Handsome Devil as the Forbidden Love series, with each functioning as an interconnected standalone.
The reading order is:
- Truly Madly Deeply
- Wildest Dreams
- Handsome Devil
Reading them in order gives you the larger relationship and family connections across the LJverse, but Dylan and Rhyland’s story remains complete in Wildest Dreams.
Who Should Read Wildest Dreams?
I’d recommend Wildest Dreams to readers who love romances where pretending to be together becomes dangerous because the couple already has far too much unresolved chemistry.
It’s particularly strong if you enjoy fake engagements, single-mom heroines, brother’s-best-friend romance, enemies to lovers, reformed playboys, forced proximity, found family, explicit spice, and couples who use sarcasm as a substitute for admitting feelings.
The book will also appeal to readers who want the single-parent element to matter.
Dylan’s relationship with Rhyland can never exist separately from Gravity, which means Rhyland has to prove he’s capable of more than being an exciting boyfriend.
He has to show that he can become part of a family.
Wildest Dreams Review: Final Thoughts
Wildest Dreams works because the fakest thing in the story eventually becomes the most honest.
Dylan and Rhyland begin their engagement knowing exactly what they’re doing. He needs credibility. She needs distance from her ex.
They already know each other, they don’t particularly like each other, and neither believes there’s any danger of confusing the arrangement with something real.
That confidence lasts about as well as you’d expect. What makes the romance satisfying isn’t simply watching two enemies finally admit they’re attracted to each other.
The attraction was never particularly difficult to detect. The real transformation comes from what each character has to reconsider about themselves. Dylan has built her life around responsibility and independence because those qualities keep Gravity safe.
That strength is admirable, but it has also made accepting help feel dangerous. Rhyland has built his life around pleasure and emotional detachment because nothing can demand too much from you if you refuse to need anything deeply.
That freedom looks considerably less impressive once he experiences what belonging to Dylan and Gravity might feel like.
They challenge each other in exactly the places neither wants challenged.
Dylan forces Rhyland to understand that loving someone isn’t just wanting them.
It’s showing up when convenience disappears.
Rhyland forces Dylan to consider whether independence can become another wall if she refuses to believe anyone might actually stay.
The fake engagement puts them together.
Gravity, vulnerability, intimacy, and the ordinary routines of sharing a life are what make the relationship real. I also liked that Shen lets both characters remain flawed after their feelings become obvious.
Dylan doesn’t suddenly stop being defensive. Rhyland doesn’t become a completely domesticated romantic hero overnight.
They still provoke each other. They still make mistakes. They still have to choose whether their connection is worth changing for.
That messiness is what makes Wildest Dreams feel alive.
The book gives you plenty of what the premise promises: sharp banter, forbidden attraction, fake kisses that stop feeling fake, a cocky playboy getting emotionally wrecked, and enough heat to make the supposedly temporary arrangement look ridiculous almost immediately.
What stayed with me, though, was the family they begin building almost by accident.
Rhyland thinks he’s pretending to be husband material. Dylan thinks she’s borrowing a fiancé. Somewhere between those two lies, they create something neither expected to want.
For me, that’s where Wildest Dreams becomes more than a fun fake-engagement romance.
It’s a story about discovering that letting someone into your life doesn’t necessarily mean losing the independence you’ve fought so hard to build. Sometimes it means finally having someone willing to help you carry it.
Wildest Dreams FAQ
What is Wildest Dreams by L.J. Shen about?
Wildest Dreams follows Dylan Casablancas, a 26-year-old single mother who moves to New York with her daughter, Gravity, and finds herself living near Rhyland Coltridge, her brother’s best friend. Rhyland needs to look like husband material to secure a business deal, while Dylan needs a fake fiancé to discourage her persistent ex, so they agree to pretend they’re engaged and discover that their supposedly fake relationship is becoming increasingly real.
Who are the main characters in Wildest Dreams?
The central couple is Dylan Casablancas and Rhyland Coltridge. Dylan is a fiercely independent single mother raising her daughter, Gravity, while Rhyland is her brother’s best friend, a notorious playboy, and the man she agrees to fake an engagement with.
Is Wildest Dreams a fake-dating romance?
Yes, although fake engagement is more precise. Rhyland needs a fiancée to improve his image with a potential business partner, while Dylan wants her ex to believe she has moved on, so they create a mutually beneficial fake engagement.
Is Wildest Dreams enemies to lovers?
Yes. Dylan and Rhyland begin with substantial existing friction and spend much of the book provoking each other before the attraction underneath their hostility becomes impossible to ignore. Sourcebooks categorizes their dynamic as enemies to lovers.
Is Wildest Dreams a single-mom romance?
Yes. Dylan is raising her daughter, Gravity, and motherhood is central to her decisions, priorities, and expectations for a relationship rather than being treated as a background detail.
Is Wildest Dreams a brother’s best friend romance?
Yes. Rhyland is the best friend of Dylan’s older brother, which adds another forbidden element to their relationship and gives them a history before the fake engagement begins.
Is Wildest Dreams spicy?
Yes. Wildest Dreams is a high-heat adult romance with explicit on-page sexual content, frank language, and strong sexual humor. The romance uses that physical chemistry alongside the fake-engagement and enemies-to-lovers tension.
Does Wildest Dreams have a happy ending?
Yes. Dylan and Rhyland receive a complete romantic resolution within Wildest Dreams, and the book is designed as an interconnected standalone.
Does Wildest Dreams end on a cliffhanger?
No. The central romantic arc is resolved within the book, so readers don’t need the next Forbidden Love installment to complete Dylan and Rhyland’s relationship.
What book comes after Wildest Dreams?
Handsome Devil is the third Forbidden Love novel and follows a different central couple, Gia Bennett and Tatum Blackthorn. L.J. Shen lists the series order as Truly Madly Deeply, Wildest Dreams, and Handsome Devil.