A Steamy Age Gap Grumpy Hero Romance Novella
Marcus Hale doesn’t do partnerships, not in twenty years, and certainly not with the optimistic twenty-six-year-old who just walked into his greenhouse.
Sierra Lang was hired to assist on the rare tropicals project, but her new supervisor made one thing clear from the start: he works alone. Marcus has spent two decades perfecting isolation, building a life where control means safety and proximity means risk. But Sierra doesn’t dim herself to match his distance. She anticipates problems he hasn’t identified, challenges assumptions he’s held for years, and refuses to be dismissed by coldness that would send anyone else running.
The eighteen years between them should be reason enough to keep things professional. Marcus knows better than to notice the way she moves through his carefully controlled world. Sierra deserves someone who hasn’t spent half a lifetime convinced that wanting people gives them power to hurt you.
But when the grant deadline forces a decision and proximity becomes unavoidable, Marcus has to choose: protect Sierra from himself, or trust that she knows exactly what, and who, she wants.
Some distances can’t be maintained forever.
