Gianni and Ellie’s ages made no sense to me. How are you 22 and a nationally renowned chef with a reality TV show and an award-winning restaurant under your belt? the couple is the ultimate focus of the story. you have side characters but they don’t take over the story. instead they enhance the existing dynamics and its super sweet— especially Felicity (h) and her sisters, Winnie and Millie. their bond made me wanna cry, fr. Felicity didn't think that making up an engagement to her billionaire childhood best friend was going to go anywhere, okay? Has she kind of been in love with him forever? Sure. Has he also been in love with her? Yeah. What could possibly go wrong? Hear me when I say there are very few books by Melanie Harlow that I haven't read... she's undoubtedly one of my favorite authors. This is one of her best. GAH?! I was not expecting to say that when I started this!!!! I was hoping to like it despise the premise - instead, I fell head over heals for these two and their story. And the plot fits beautifully with their personalities and situation. If the fake dating isn't enough to convince you, the MMC alone will... Once their families find out, they have a hard time breaking their hearts by telling them it was all a lie😬. So they don’t 😅.

This is a really sweet, funny, and sometimes swoony enemies-to-lovers story with a wonderful ending, and a bonus epilogue that was heartwarming. I needed this. Childhood best friends meets small-town romance, and the result was this heartwarming feeling in my chest. the heroine becoming friends with her nemesis. We don’t need her in her life💁🏻‍♀️. Don’t try being friends please 🤦🏻‍♀️. The bad woman doesn’t need to be redeemed 😐 lol Hutton and Felicity have been in each others lives since childhood. Best friends that have been secretly pinning for each other for along time.

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Felicity and Hutton have been best friends since met in middle school! They remained best friends all through high school and harbored crushes on each other... However, they were too awkward and cherished their friendship too much to make a move on the other. They still kept in touch after graduating, but one day, at their high school reunion, Felicity's mouth gets her in trouble when she shares that she's engaged to Hutton, her best friend, the sexy billionaire. She asks Hutton to go to the reunion to be her fake fiancee and he drops everything to go to her. They decide to fake their engagement for a bit longer and practice kissing because it makes sense, right? what happens when their pretend engagement doesn't seem so pretend anymore... the 🔥. Oh Lordt. I love, LOOOOVE enemies-to-lovers, ESPECIALLY when the h’s hesitant, and Gianni convinces her so sexily that I would’ve slapped her if she hadn’t gone through with it 😅. He listens to her likes and dislikes and then he shows her that there’s more to smex than what she’s experienced. And gawd, it’s 🥵💦🔥. He makes sure she feels pleasure. I see you Gianni 👀😉. You tell her 💅 rip your clothes off? Yeah. I’m just gonna take a seat right here and watch it unfold 👀 and don’t get me started on the “thank you” drop the towel scene 😉 We practice kissing. Undressing each other. Saying things–and doing things–we’d never dare if we weren’t pretending. Because it’s all for show, right? We’re just role-playing. Hutton doesn’t want a real relationship, and I don’t want to get hurt. But the more time we spend faking it, the more I start to wonder. Friends to lovers, fake dating, lots of anxiety representation, low angst and just a really cute story.

Book Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Family, Fiction, Humor, M F Romance, New Adult, Romance There are so many pieces in the story that we can totally relate to. Social awkwardness? Absolutely 100%. Have a mad crush on your Bestie forever? Yeah, I can I can see that one. i loved both characters so much. Gianni was sexy. gimme my own Gianni. especially after that ending, the man nailed it and raised my standards to unforeseen heights. just everything about the Cherry Festival made me wanna sob🥺🥺🥺 the way he loved her?????? i can’t. the pictures, too. i was losing my mind it was all so wonderfully beautiful. Melanie’s favorite part about writing is the actual wording sentence level stuff. She loves to put thoughts and feelings into the words that make a reader look over her shoulders because Melanie got into their head. She also loves to write dialogue. Her least favorite part of it all is plotting, as she is horrible at it. When she attempts to outline, she will just sit and stare at her screen.more of them together during her actual pregnancy. The chapters we get are super sweet though, but I wanted more Harlow gifts us a friend to lovers romance with two amazing characters that are the perfect balance for each other. I absolutely love Hutton. He is this amazing character with this hot little kink to him that just absolutely tore up the sheets! MMMmmm yes, please! they spend almost half the book together, trapped in the motel in the midst of a snow storm. we get unfiltered Gianni and Ellie, uninterrupted and it was so much fun. the smut was off the charts, but even before that, the built-up tension between them was palpable. they just had this perfect balance of flirtiness, animosity and snark that made for some excellent smut and tension. Faced with the fact that both their families know about the “engagement” and are really happy for them, they decide to keep the ruse for both their sakes. Felicity moves in. And suddenly, that big house is not enough for them to escape temptation.