Lynn Painter is one of my top 5 favorite authors, but she seriously missed the mark on this one. I genuinely don’t know what happened. 2.5 stars rounded down.

Synopsis
Izzy Shay is late for her very first day of work at her new job in HR at Ellis Industries, her dream company. The line at Starbucks is huge, so she decides to steal a stranger’s drink off the counter to make it to work on time. Because Izzy is such a quirky, clumsy, clumsy girl, she runs straight into a man, spilling her scalding hot drink all over him. She bumbles and fumbles around with napkins and straight up gropes his chest because she is so flustered and clumsy, clumsy. He becomes so enraptured with this quirky, clumsy, clumsy girl, that he valiantly does not care about his clothes or (likely) 1st degree burns and begs for her number instead. As she leaves, he calls her “Amy,” the name of the stranger from who Izzy stole a drink. And because Izzy is such a quirky, clumsy, clumsy girl, she does not correct him and goes about her day.
Later, at the gym in her office building, she ends up on the elevator with none other than the man from Starbucks, whom she has named “Mr. Chest.” In order to talk to him longer, she suddenly halts the elevator, which is of course quirky and clumsy inside of her head, but Mr. Chest finds it oh so sexy. When they finally exit the elevator, he yet again refers to her as Amy, and she yet again does not correct him.
Her direct supervisor at Ellis wants to introduce her to the Assistant Vice President of the company. The AVP is, of course, none other than Mr. Chest, though his real name is Blake Phillips. The truth quickly, and awkwardly, comes out and Blake/Chest is turned off of Izzy/Amy because he recently ended his engagement with a woman who was a liar and also the devil. This engagement is seldom brought up again throughout the story and serves no real purpose whatsoever.
Izzy decides to text Blake later that night to explain that she is just a quirky, clumsy, clumsy girl who meant no real harm by her lie and it's Perfectly Fine if he wants to fire her. Against his personal ethics, he replies to the quirky, quirky girl, despite the fact that she is his employee to tell her, valiantly, that he will not fire her.
Izzy gets stranded on the side of the road in what is portrayed as a Category 5 hurricane and needs Blake to save her because she is walking on the side of the highway. She refuses his help because she is quirky and clumsy, but he valiantly does not care. He and his nice car are so rich, rich, rich and she is so poor, poor, poor and quirky and clumsy and drenched to the bone. He takes her to her poor, poor, poor apartment and stays there to play a game with her and her friends, even though she is his employee, and They Cannot Be Friends. At the end of the night, they decide that maybe they can be friends despite their romantic and sexual feelings toward one another. This is, of course, not true and they spend the rest of the book trying not to admit that they like each other.

The Bad
- I’m sure my feelings toward the characters are clear in my synopsis. There was no real depth to either of them. I found this to be true of the last book I read of Lynn Painter’s, as well.
- I’m not sure exactly what happened with the editors on this book, but the typos and inconsistent formatting made this nearly impossible to read. This could also be due to the fact that I read this on my Kindle. Regardless, I was so focused on the errors that I found it hard to actually pay attention to the story.
- The steamy scenes were mostly fade-to-black, which I am not a fan of.
- The word (if you could even call it that) “Gawwwwd” was so incredibly overused. Actually, only using it once would be too much. But she used it so incredibly much, in BOTH POVs, that I was physically cringing every time I read it. I had real secondhand embarrassment. It was bad.
- The ending was ATROCIOUS. I didn’t even realize that it had ended. There were so many loose ends and it genuinely hurts my brain to think about it.

The Good
- I could genuinely feel the chemistry between the characters. Like I truly believed that they were destined for each other.
- Lynn Painter sure knows how to write ooey-gooey feelings. As much as I hated this book, I found myself smiling at a few parts.

TLDR
Don’t waste your time.