Layla was destined to be a star, but when her agent dumps her and she’s evicted from her apartment, she’s forced to admit she doesn’t have what it takes to make it in Hollywood. Desperate for money, she goes back to her home town and applies for the one job that nobody else wants – personal assistant to Calvin Montgomery.
Calvin may be a billionaire business mogul now, but in Sweet Bay, he’s still considered nothing but a no-good Montgomery, especially when he decides to build a tourist resort in the small, secluded, seaside town that wants to stay off the map.
Despite her lack of qualifications, Calvin can’t say no to the girl he had a crush on ever since he was a poor, bullied teen and she was the brightest star in Sweet Bay, even though he doesn’t think she could ever return his feelings.
Working for the guy she used to bully is the ultimate humiliation to Layla, and every time her competence is challenged, her ego takes another hit. But she can’t help falling for her boss when she realizes he’s a lot more than just brilliant, handsome, and wealthy.
Calvin soon realizes Layla just might be the key to convincing Sweet Bay to embrace his resort. But can she convince him she sees more in him than dollar signs?
Layla is returning to her town in shame as her Hollywood career has gone nowhere in the past ten years. She left right after high school thinking that she was going to be a star, but now she is moving back into her parents’ house because she can’t find a decent job without a degree. To be honest, I could relate to her! Everyone has had a time in their life when they thought that they were going to be great and then had to embarrass themselves a bit when they had to admit that things weren’t going as planned.
Layla was simply trying to find a job anywhere, and she ends up working for a boy that she went to high school with named Calvin. Layla used to bully him, so she is embarrassed to have to come to him in her time of need. Calvin isn’t sure if she will be up to the task, but he can’t say no to the girl that he used to crush on. Either way, he doesn’t have many choices for employees as the entire town is determined to run his resort out of business before it even opens to the public.
To be honest, I didn’t even focus on the romance that much in this story. I don’t even read that many office romance stories, so I didn’t have much to compare it to. Instead, I focused on the actual storyline. It was so interesting, and it reminded me so much of those Hallmark movies that I end up loving. Calvin is actually trying to do something good for the dying town, but people are prejudiced against him because of his family’s reputation. Layla has to get over those beliefs to keep her job, and she starts to see Calvin as a real person. This was what was even more important than their relationship, how they got to see each other as people rather than the boy from a bad family and the popular girl out of his league.
I won’t spoil anything, but I truly enjoyed the storyline with the resort and the town, and how it ended. In many romance novels the non-romantic plot gets pushed to the side, but in this novel, it was just as much a part of the story as Calvin and Layla’s relationship.
Overall, this is one of the most fleshed-out office romance novels that I have ever read! I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a new romance novel to read.
I received an advance copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 books.
