The first of the novellas by Hazelwood most definitely left me wanting more. I didn’t want it to end and the fact that it had to makes me itching for the next one.

When Mara is left part of a house by a close friend after she passes, she doesn’t expect to have to fight family members in order to claim what is rightfully hers. In fact, the last thing she expected was Liam standing in the doorway – or the incredible chemistry that seemed to zing between them. But once they both acknowledged who they were, why they were there, and what they meant to each other (absolutely nothing beyond being a pest in each other’s home), the short-lived flame was instantly extinguished. At least one the surface.

As Mara works her magic to at least be friends with Liam, his walls start to come down. But in return, Mara realizes she’s falling for him and can’t continue to live in the same house as him.

This novella takes on two time lines, providing readers with the past and working up to the present, while also giving us glimpses of how these two interact in present day at the same time. We get to see how they met, how their friendship came to be, and how much they had to fight against being anything else.

These novellas are making me want Hazelwood’s next book more desperately than I should admit, as she truly is a master at crafting characters who work perfectly together. Enemies-to-lovers, close proximity romance … it’s perfect.