The Acquistion Clause

She built her firm from nothing. He inherited an empire he's still trying to earn. Neither of them wanted a partner - until they didn't have a choice.

Wren Ellery clawed her way to the top of Chicago's architecture scene after a broken engagement taught her exactly what happens when you trust the wrong person with your work. She doesn't do office romances. She doesn't do rivals. And she definitely doesn't do Callum Bishop - the effortlessly charming CEO who once tried to steal her biggest client over dessert at the city's best restaurant.

Then their biggest client forces their hands.

Diane Ackerman is done watching two brilliant firms circle each other instead of building something extraordinary. Her ultimatum is simple: co-lead her flagship retail project together, or lose the account for good. Ninety days. Equal say. No exceptions.

What starts as a hostile truce - fought out over load-bearing walls, midnight permit deadlines, and a stubborn refusal to admit the other person might actually be brilliant - becomes something neither of them saw coming. Callum isn't the man Wren built him up to be in her head. And the terraces he sketched on a folding table the first week? They might just be the best idea either of them has ever had.

But old wounds don't stay buried just because you want them to. When a decision made under pressure starts to look a little too familiar, Wren has to decide whether she's protecting herself - or punishing Callum for a debt someone else still owes her. And Callum has to decide whether he's willing to fight for a woman who might never fully believe he's not going to become exactly what he's spent his whole life trying not to be.

Ninety days was supposed to be a business arrangement. It becomes the foundation of everything.

The Acquisition Clause is a steamy, emotionally rich enemies-to-lovers romance about two guarded, ambitious people who have to choose - over and over, one honest conversation at a time - to trust each other with more than just the blueprints. Follow Wren and Callum from a hostile elevator ride through four flagship cities, a wedding, a family, and everything it actually takes to build something meant to last.

Perfect for fans of slow-burn workplace romance, rivals-to-lovers tension, and love stories where the happily-ever-after is earned, not handed over.

Warning: contains banter sharp enough to draw blood, a genuinely swoon-worthy grand gesture, and at least one argument about a load-bearing wall that will make you fall in love right alongside them.