CROSSING THE LINE by Victor P. Watts

Maren Voss doesn't do distractions. Six years clawing her way up at a boutique architecture firm taught her that wanting things — attention, indulgence, a man who looks at her like she's the only person in the room — is how careers stall. She's finally landed the contract that could save her firm from collapse. She is not about to let anything knock her off course. Especially not her new client. Callum Reyes built a hospitality empire out of the wreckage of a betrayal that cost him everything once already, and he's spent eleven years making sure it never happens again — by never letting anyone close enough to matter. He didn't expect the architect who told him, in their very first meeting, that he couldn't move the sun. He didn't expect to want to find out what was underneath her composure. And he definitely didn't expect the exact instinct that once nearly destroyed him — managing everything alone, deciding things without asking — to be the very thing that threatens to cost him her, too. Their arrangement is supposed to stay strictly professional. It survives about a month. What starts as late-night site visits and charged arguments over blueprints becomes something neither of them can afford — a strict no-fraternization policy, an acquisition riding on the project's flawless execution, and two people who built their entire lives around never needing anyone this much. When old wounds and older enemies threaten to expose everything, Maren and Callum will have to choose: the careful, guarded lives they built to survive — or the terrifying, unguarded one only worth living together. Tropes: Forbidden Romance, Workplace Romance, Forced Proximity, Billionaire Hero, Slow Burn, Sexual Awakening