Faking Ms. Right

Everly Dalton cannot get through a first date. Her love life is a string of disasters, and she likes her martinis. At work she is another person: she has outlasted every other assistant billionaire Shepherd Calloway has employed, and her coworkers wonder how she deals with such a fearsome boss without getting hurt.

Shepherd has given up on dating. He is tired of women who want his money, and he means to put all his attention into running his business. Then his gold-digging ex does him real damage and leaves him in a bind. His answer is to ask Everly to play his live-in girlfriend.

The idea is absurd, but the timing suits her. Everly needs a big, awkward favor from her boss, and a few months of pretending looks like a trade that gives them both what they want. She expects to manage it easily. She has always seen Shepherd as a single-minded, unemotional machine.

That picture does not hold up once they share a home. The fake dates and the shared bed blur the line between act and attraction, and Everly starts to see the man behind the wealth. This is a fake-relationship romance between an assistant and her boss, with a light, comic tone and a steamy undercurrent.