J-Bhav
One Empire. Two Heirs. And a total lack of romantic chemistry-at least, according to the spreadsheets.
Sloane Vance doesn't "do" feelings. As the brilliant COO of Vance-Thorne Industries, she views the human heart as a poorly designed pump prone to irrational glitches. When her pulse quickens around Julian Thorne, she doesn't think romance; she thinks stress-induced cortisol spike. When he looks at her like she's his entire world, she simply assumes he's suffering from a temporary dopamine deficit.
Julian Thorne has been "hopeless" since they were children. He's the CEO the world fears, but he's also the boy who has spent twenty years waiting for his best friend to look up from her data points and see him. He doesn't want to just merge their companies; he wants to bridge the gap between their desks.
With four meddling parents who have already started planning a wedding they haven't been invited to, and a "mandatory" retreat to a private estate, the logic is finally starting to fail. Julian is done playing it safe, and Sloane is about to realize that some variables-like the way he says her name or the way his hand feels on her waist-are impossible to calculate.