The Italian Fixer-Upper

Sloane Whitaker is completely broke. Her London architectural firm is sinking, and her last lifeboat is a massive restoration grant for a crumbling Italian villa. There's just one broad-shouldered, scowling problem: Matteo Rossi.

The local master carpenter hates her blueprints almost as much as she hates his sledgehammer. Matteo needs the exact same grant to save his generational lumber yard and keep his eight-year-old daughter in their village.

When the eccentric villa owner announces she will only award the contract to a devoted couple, Sloane and Matteo fall into a desperate trap. They have one summer to fake a passionate romance, outsmart a meddling mayor, and repair a sixteenth-century roof without killing each other.

But between blistering arguments in the Mediterranean heat and forced kisses that taste like red wine and danger, their ironclad rules begin to buckle. Matteo's fierce, calloused devotion is stripping away Sloane's carefully constructed walls. If they fail the performance, they lose their livelihoods. But walking away might cost them the one thing they never planned to build.