Off The Blueprint

~The engagement was supposed to fool everyone except them. It fooled them first. It ended with forever, Insha'Allah.~

Kithman has always believed that love deserves certainty, not convenience.

At twenty-five, she's built a life most people only dream about. She runs her own interior design firm, tutors English Language and Literature, accepts only the photography projects that spark something in her heart, and carries herself with a grace that makes grandmothers quietly wish she would marry their grandsons. Elegant, composed, and endlessly capable, she's the last person anyone would suspect of keeping an entire world hidden behind polished smiles and pressed kurtis.

Ahraz never expected a stranger to challenge him over the restoration of a vintage car at a wedding.

He expected an argument.

He didn't expect to keep looking for her afterward.

At twenty-seven, he's an architect and co-owner of his family's construction company, a man who trusts measurements, structure, and plans. Then he discovers the woman who disrupted his peace is also the only professional capable of challenging every design decision he makes.

Business turns rivals into reluctant partners.

One harmless lie turns into a fake engagement.

Their families celebrate.

Their best friends fall in love.

And somehow, the more they pretend to belong to each other, the more impossible it becomes to remember where the pretending ends.

Between unfinished blueprints, handwritten poetry, impossible design meetings, wedding chaos, quiet prayers, and lives neither of them planned to share, Kithman and Ahraz begin building something far more dangerous than love.

A home.

Because the strongest foundations are never built according to the plan.