From bestselling authors Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, the dynamic duo of spicy rom-coms “smoldering, sexy, and achingly tender” (B.K. Borison), comes the next book in the Academic Affairs series, following a playboy heir and his second-chance romance with an older woman…
The ever-elegant and contained Sloane Saint James is recently divorced and now unexpectedly (and... dubiously...consensually...) the owner of her favorite dive bar from college. She only wants one thing, which is her God-given right to a ho phase, but the aforementioned bar and what her cousin Leo calls her "artless incompetence" with dating apps has resulted in a no phase rather than a ho phase. Tragic.

West Cabot Hope is the heir to the Hope family's media conglomerate of feel-good TV movies and greeting cards, and a semi-discreet playboy. But his heart has belonged to one woman alone since he was eighteen years old: his best friend's stepmother, Sloane Saint James. Never mind that she's nine years older than him and at the time was seemingly happily married, he still poured his heart out to her on the day of his high school graduation, and was gently—but firmly—shut all the way down. Brutal.

Fast forward several years, and the heartbroken has become the heartbreaker. And even though he has the Hope empire at his fingertips, West is still restless for the one thing he really wants—the attention of Sloane Saint James. After a charity date auction mishap that has West gallantly stepping in to save Sloane, he offers her a chance to pay him back...in a mutually beneficial manner, obviously. But with an age gap, years of pining, and two broken hearts in their pockets, can there ever be anything more than history between these two?