ROSSY0501
Valentina 'Vale' Cruz has spent years building a life that belongs entirely to her. At twenty-nine, she's ambitious, independent, and finally on the verge of landing the career opportunity that could change everything. As a creative producer specializing in luxury events and hospitality, Vale is accustomed to controlling chaos.
What she isn't accustomed to is being flattened on a city sidewalk by a six-foot-something wall of celebrity security.
One badly timed shoulder.One spectacular fall. One broken wrist. And one very apologetic Jackson Wang crouching beside her.
Vale knows exactly who he is. She just doesn't particularly care.
As far as she's concerned, Jackson isn't the problem. His refrigerator-sized bodyguard is. Jackson, unfortunately, finds her irritation hilarious.
What begins as guilt-fueled responsibility quickly becomes something neither of them planned. Hospital visits turn into daily texts. Follow-up appointments become lunches. Jackson somehow becomes her emergency contact, Daniel becomes permanently known as Samsung, and somewhere between arguments over pain medication, stolen medical paperwork, late-night takeout, and entirely too many almost-moments, Vale and Jackson stumble into a friendship no one around them believes is actually friendship.
They insist everyone is wrong. They are not convincing. But Jackson's world doesn't come without consequences.
When photographs leak and the internet becomes obsessed with the mysterious woman constantly beside him, Vale is suddenly pulled into a life she never asked for-one filled with headlines, invasive cameras, rumors, and strangers who think they know her because of the man standing next to her.
And for Jackson, Vale becomes something even more dangerous.Someone who doesn't want Jackson Wang, the celebrity.She wants the annoying man who steals her fries, remembers how she takes her coffee, worries too much, laughs too loudly, and somehow knows when she needs him even when she refuses to ask.