A perfect room. A dangerous attraction. One woman who refuses to be managed.

Natalie Price has spent forty-five years learning how to control everything. As operations director of the prestigious Bellwether Hotel, she's built her reputation on flawless standards, impossible expectations, and never letting anyone see her lose her composure.

Unfortunately, the most beautiful bar in the city is also its emptiest.

Enter Simone Brooks.

Thirty-three, devastatingly confident, and the owner of a neighborhood bar where nobody can find an empty seat, Simone is everything Natalie isn't. Warm where Natalie is cold. Reckless where Natalie is careful. And entirely unimpressed by expensive marble, corporate authority, or the formidable woman everyone calls the Ice Queen.

Simone has ten weeks to save Natalie's failing bar. Falling for the woman who controls the project was never part of the contract.

But late nights, stolen kisses, and a dangerous amount of chemistry turn professional disagreements into something neither woman can manage. Behind Natalie's perfectly tailored suits is a woman desperate to stop being responsible for everyone. Behind Simone's effortless confidence is someone who has spent years fighting to build a life that belongs entirely to her.

For the first time, both women have found someone who sees them.

Then the opportunity of a lifetime threatens to pull them apart.

With Natalie's career ambitions and Simone's dream business on a collision course, loving each other might be the easiest part. Learning to make room for each other without surrendering themselves could cost them everything.

Because some things can't be negotiated.

And love doesn't come with a contract.

Aurora North