A Year of Accidental Love Affairs

Last year, food critic Simone Clarke went viral with her cynical article "Love is Canceled This Year." This year, she's about to eat those words. When Simone is assigned to review VÉRITÉ for Chicago Taste Magazine's Valentine's Day feature, she expects the usual overpriced performance art masquerading as cuisine. What she doesn't expect is Julian Moretti. The arrogant, infuriating, devastatingly talented chef whose food tastes like a love letter and whose eyes see straight through her carefully constructed armor.

Maeve Calder has exactly one plan: close up The Howl, beat the freak Oklahoma snowstorm home, and spend the night wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and a filthy paperback. Then a stranded stranger barrels through her door. Graham Mercer is tall, tense, and built from control and caffeine. A college basketball coach racing toward the Sweet Sixteen. A man with too much pressure on his shoulders and zero patience for detours. The highway shuts down.

They say whatever you’re doing at midnight sets the tone for your whole year. Vivienne really hopes that’s not true… unless it is. Her New Year’s Eve is already circling the drain. A viral scandal has torpedoed her reputation, her father is breathing down her neck, and a museum full of judgmental donors is the last place she wants to be. Cue Brooks Hayes. The museum's Head of Security. Tall. Serious. Handsome in a broody, yet adorable way. Maddeningly unimpressed by her. The most attractive man she’s ever wanted to strangle.

When Briar Dawson gets stranded at the airport on her way to Derby season, the last thing she needs is a distraction. She's spent a decade clawing her way into rooms that weren't built for her, and she's finally close enough to touch the dream her father never got credit for. That is, until a stranger claims the stool beside her. He's expensive fabric, rehearsed answers, and possesses a confidence that comes from never having been told no. He's also, as it turns out, exactly the type of trouble she promised herself she'd never get into. Until now. One moment. No names. No future.