One week, one irresistible mistake, and two people forced to choose between safe independence and a love that refuses to be anonymous.

Victoria Lathrop built a life by the numbers: a thriving social-media firm, a spotless apartment, and a fierce independence she's never regretted, until a week in the Berkshires reawakens the artist she buried ten years ago. Drawn to the Faraway Inn for a curated chance to make and to breathe, she expects nothing more than paint-splattered amusement and the occasional awkward charcoal sketch.

Aaron Price is a man trying to live smaller than his past. Once a world-famous guitarist, he's traded arenas for quiet, helping his daughter scope out a cozy inn she might turn into a future. When he walks into Victoria's week—warm, witty, and deliberately unnamed—their chemistry is instant and complicated.

He's everything her mother warned her against; he's also the missing piece she didn't know she was searching for.

As a week of art classes, late-night conversation, and reckless sex accelerates into something tender and true, both must confront the question neither expected: can two people with very different pasts build something lasting, or will truth and fear send them back to the lives they thought they wanted?