Shacking Up

Shacking Up is a contemporary romantic comedy by New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting, published on 30 May 2017 and the first book in her Shacking Up series. Ruby Scott is an aspiring actress months behind on rent, and the audition that was supposed to turn things around goes disastrously wrong when she arrives sick — courtesy of the gorgeous stranger who kissed her, and coughed on her, at a party the night before.

Newly evicted, Ruby takes a job her best friend turns up: minding the exotic pets in the lavish New York penthouse of hotel magnate Bancroft "Bane" Mills while he is out of town. When she arrives to meet her employer, Bane is the same man who got her sick. Feeling responsible for the mess he made of her week, he offers her a permanent position as his live-in pet sitter until she can get back on her feet.

What follows is a forced-proximity romance built on awkward encounters, considerable sexual tension, and a relationship that develops largely at a distance — over calls and messages while Bane travels — before the two of them are finally in the same room. Hunting plays the setup for comedy while giving both leads real financial and family pressures to work around, and the book is followed in the series by Hooking Up and I Flipping Love You.