Chemist Nikki Stacy has ambitions beyond playing mad scientist in her parents’ garage. The former prima ballerina is on the shortlist for a huge cash award that could finance the start-up of her natural cosmetics company, and her products are already generating buzz in eastern North Carolina. She’s got no time for distractions, which of course means she’ll probably have them in spades. Charlie Mitchell wants to be one of those distractions. He’s had his eye on the quick-tempered sparkplug since they both went through puberty. The farmer thinks he’s the perfect yin to Nikki’s high-class yang, but she’s barely looked his way in her whole twenty-eight years. Just when he finally catches the slippery woman’s attention, an old flame tries to shakes things up in a way that’ll not only embarrass his preteen daughter, but disenchant Nikki as well. Charlie’s got one last chance to snag the girl next door, and this time it’s not his libido talking, but his daughter. She needs a mother, and she wants Nikki to fill the job.

The chick lit-infused side-story from Holley Trent's Natural Beauty contemporary romance series. Edenton, North Carolina's favorite CPA Macy Vickers has a part-time gig she's not so enthused about. She regularly plays chaperone to the two most unpredictable women in town, and this time Beth and Gretchen have the staid accountant front row and center at a drag revue. When one of the performers takes a special interest in Macy, her night becomes wrought with shenanigans—one of which puts her in a female impersonator's bed.

Oil and water, or yin and yang? Jerry Rouse lacks the three basic things Trinity Jordan requires to consider him her equal: education, class, and ambition. What he does have are piercings, bawdy tats, and a head full of blond dreads. All those things make the tech guy stick out like a sore thumb in conservative Eastern North Carolina. Jerry lives life to the beat of his own drummer, and couldn’t care less what his bossy coworker thinks of him. In fact, he loves to rile the straight-laced preppy up just to see her blush. When the cosmetics company they’ve helped build is rocked by sabotage attempts that threaten to delay the launch of the brand’s nail polish line, the two have little choice but to call a truce until the culprit is uncovered. That’s not all they uncover. Being thrown together makes the two realize that perhaps they’re not so incompatible. But, who can think about love when their livelihoods are on the line?