Close to Me

Sometimes the best plans are the ones you never saw coming.

Rachel Rivers had her life perfectly mapped out—until an FBI raid destroyed her Houston marketing career and left her name splashed across international headlines in a fraud scandal she knew nothing about. Stranded in London with no visa, no job, and no way home that doesn’t end in professional ruin, she’s out of options.

Then Fix Grant makes her an offer she can’t refuse.

The chaotic, brilliant drummer for Velvet Static has been half in love with Rachel since the moment he met her. His solution to her crisis? Marry him. It’s just paperwork, he promises. Twelve months and she’s free. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything, as it turns out.

Living in Fix’s cramped Camden flat above a kebab shop, sharing his too-small bed, learning his routines—it was supposed to stay fake. But Fix’s infectious energy chips away at Rachel’s carefully controlled world, while her organizational genius keeps his beautiful chaos from self-destructing. He falls first and hard, wearing his heart on his tattooed sleeve. She fights it, terrified to trust again after betrayal cost her everything.

When their marriage starts feeling dangerously real, Rachel panics. She’s built her career on playing it safe, on plans and schedules and control. Fix is spontaneous jam sessions at 2 AM, forgotten meetings, and drumbeats that shake the walls. He’s everything she shouldn’t want. Everything she’s terrified to need.

But when Rachel’s fear leads to a devastating lie and Fix discovers the truth, he has to decide if he can trust someone who couldn’t trust him—while Rachel must prove she’s not running from love anymore. She’s finally ready to run toward it.

Set against the gritty backdrop of 1990’s Camden music scene, The Perfect Girl is a sizzling romance about learning that life’s beautiful chaos is better than perfect control, that the most stable thing in your life might be the person who can’t sit still, and discovering that sometimes love isn’t about finding someone perfect—it’s about finding someone perfectly imperfect for you.

For fans of: rockstar romance, marriage of convenience, dual POV, forced proximity, he falls first, drummer heroes who are all heart and zero chill, opposites attract, ADHD representation that matters, and love stories where saying “I do” is just the beginning.