Look, I didn’t come to this retreat for drama. I came for libraries, peace, and the very remote possibility that my grant pitch wouldn’t crash and burn. I certainly didn’t come here to be co-hosting anything with *Cody Clark*—the literary snob who once called romance novels “brain candy for bored housewives.” Charming, right? Except… he’s read my work. And liked it. Under my pen name. He doesn’t know I’m Eden Rae, the romance author whose book he just confessed to loving. Now I’m stuck in panels, a fake relationship, and what I can only describe as slow-burn death-by-eye-contact with a man who is infuriatingly attractive, frustratingly sincere, and dangerously close to rewriting my very carefully structured narrative. It was supposed to be an arrangment. Polite. Distant. But the more time we spend together, the more lines blur. Between hostility and heat. Between masks and the truth. Between the fake photo ops... and the very real possibility that I might be falling for the man I swore I’d never forgive. He wants redemption. I want funding. But what if what we really need… is each other?