Thawing The Ice

A stubborn bookstore owner. A frozen Swedish billionaire. And three inches that could ruin everything.

Farrah Denise Rodgers has enough problems.

Her dating app is a disaster, her cousins won't stop judging her choices, and running her family's beloved Chicago bookstore and tea shop, Rodgers Roots & Pages, already takes every ounce of patience she has.

Then Aldrich Cunningham walks into her life.

Cold, ruthless, and almost twice her age, Aldrich is a Swedish billionaire used to buying whatever stands in his way. But when his luxury redevelopment project hits a legal snag, all he needs is one tiny thing from Farrah: three inches of her family's property line.

Farrah says no.

To Aldrich, it's a minor easement.
To Farrah, it's the first piece of a legacy her family fought too hard to keep.

What starts as a business standoff quickly turns into something messier, warmer, and far more dangerous than either of them expected. Between awkward dating app disasters, jealous ex-wives, protective siblings, a past Aldrich can't keep buried, and a Rodgers family determined to bring South Side chaos all the way to Sweden, falling in love might be the least complicated part.

Farrah doesn't need saving.

Aldrich doesn't know how to be soft.

But somehow, over tea, contracts, family dinners, and one very inconvenient truth, the woman he couldn't buy becomes the one thing he's terrified to lose.

A contemporary interracial age-gap rom-com about legacy, laughter, healing, and the kind of love that teaches a cold man how to come into the light.