Unperfect
Mia and Max's story
Grumpy boss office romance
When Mia shows up for the interview at a well-known architecture firm, she only has 27p, a squashed loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter to her name. She needs this job. Even if she is scared to death of the owner of the company.
Max has made a name for himself as that grumpy northern architect off Grand Designs, after he told Kevin McCloud that designing affordable, environmentally friendly homes “wasn’t rocket science” and that most of the other projects featured on the programme were for “reight poncy bastads who want to spend a grand on a shite tap.” It turned out that the whole gorgeous-but-rough-around-the-edges-Yorkshire-man vibe was just what the country was looking for – the episode had gone viral and Max was the new, extremely reluctant, pin-up of the building industry.
But to Mia, huge, grumpy men weren’t sexy, they were simply terrifying. She knows from experience that even men of average size can be dangerous. If she wasn’t so desperate, she’d run. She’s used to running. Running away is Mia’s special talent, together with invisibility – survival techniques she’s perfected over the years. So, she’ll put up with Max and his moods, ignore him calling her a teen emo freak (he’s not to know that her black hair used to be honey blonde or her heavy eyeliner isn’t by choice) and just bloody well jog on. Just try to survive. Try to hide.
It’s easy to hide when nobody really sees you. But what happens when Max finally opens his eyes?
Unworthy
Yaz and Heath's story
Secret crush, brother's best friend, enemies to lovers romance
Unreliable, irresponsible, unpredictable, unaccountable—Yazmin knows how her family view her. She was never like them though, never academic enough, never serious enough, never really good enough.
But he was different.
Heath was the one who stuck up for Yaz when she was a child. As her brother’s best friend and ten years older, he had been her hero—always defending her to her family, always seeing the best in her—he made her feel worthy of approval.
But as her childhood adoration morphed into full-blown teenage love for her idol, and Heath grew from the good-looking boy she knew to the devastatingly handsome emergency department doctor he is today, his attitude seemed to change. For some reason, her quirks went from charming to annoying—her alternative world view from refreshing to ridiculous. In fact, there are a lot of things about her Heath seems to now find ridiculous:
“You look ridiculous, Midge.”
“All this alternative therapy crap is a ridiculous waste of time.”
“Your obsession with windsurfing is getting ridiculous.”
“That ridiculous bike of yours is a bloody health hazard. When are you going to grow up and get a car?”
Having gone from worthy to unworthy in Heath’s eyes, Yaz convinces herself that his cruelty has killed her childhood crush. After one humiliation too many, she finally cuts ties altogether. By the time Heath starts to see all that he could lose, it might be too late. Maybe it’s not Yaz who’s the unworthy one after all?
Unwanted
Verity and Harry's story
Second chance, enemies to lovers romance
Why has the adorable, geeky, fashion-backwards, gangly teenager Verity fell in love with at school been replaced by this cold, intimidatingly gorgeous, billionaire CEO in a designer suit? And why is he pretending he doesn’t remember her?
Finally, Verity’s architecture company has landed the dream project, the one to launch her as a major player, at least she thought it had, until she found out that Harry York was financing it. He seems to be determined to sabotage her dreams at every turn, and she can’t understand why. Wasn’t it Harry that broke her heart all those years ago? Wasn’t she the one who was ghosted?
It hurts to feel unwanted by the one person she used to think she could trust, but then that feeling is nothing new to Verity, given her past.
Harry left his nerdy teenage side behind long ago. All it ever got him was bullied at school by the posh kids and let down by the prettiest girl he ever saw. He’s determined to show Verity how far he’s come, and punish her for ever rejecting him.
But what if he got it wrong all those years ago, leaving Verity when she needed him the most? What if he let love slip through his fingers then, and now he’s repeating the same mistake?
Full-length, stand-alone, enemies to lovers, second chance romance. Trigger warnings for childhood abuse and bullying.