Scottie Price just started a new job and it’s a real sausage fest. She’s the only woman on a team filled with Brads and Chads. Expecting a bachelor pad atmosphere, she is quickly corrected when she finds out everyone is happily married.
In an effort to impress her boss, Scottie mentions her nonexistent husband in a company meeting. But eagle-eyed Chad points out her lack of wedding ring. Panicked, Scottie creates a story about her unhappy marriage. Unfortunately for Scottie, her boss has a solution—a one-on-one session with the best marriage counselor in the Northeast, who happens to be her boss’s husband.
With no way out of her lie, Scottie agrees to see him. Frantic, she calls in help from her best friend who sets her up with his brother, an improv-obsessed millionaire.
Enter Wilder Wells. More than happy to take on the job, he teaches Scottie the main rule of improv: always say yes. But the rule backfires during the session when Wilder signs them up for an eight-day summer marriage camp with all of Scottie’s co-workers where she’ll have to share a cabin with her way-too-handsome fake husband.
This is one I couldn’t put down. It starts off strong and just gets better from there as Scotties suffers in silence amongst all the happily married Brads and Chads at work, until she doesn’t. And it really was that abrupt, just her swimming in discomfort until she opens her mouth and tells her boss about her husband. The one that’s completely fictional because Scottie’s divorced and completely single.
It was meant to be a harmless little white lie in the spur of the moment, one explained away later without harm, except things could never be that easy. No, when she invents an imaginary husband and says they’re having problems so she’s never mentioned him before, the unthinkable happens: her boss just happens to be married to a renowned marriage therapist who is happy to see her employees on short notice, anytime they can be there and completely gratis. There’s really no way to turn down this offer without admitting to an unhinged lie, so now Scottie needs a husband to attend marriage counseling together.
Her bestie hits up his brother, the bored, retired before thirty billionaire with nothing but time on his hands. Wilder jumps at the chance to add something, anything, to his open schedule and – BONUS! – this is the ultimate opportunity to flex and hone his improve skills. Scottie is grateful at first but quickly realizes that improv is Wilder cares about, not saving face or freeing her from the ridiculous constraints of marriage-counseling with her fake husband. No, Wilder is ALL IN and immediately connects with the bro-tastic marriage counselor. They’re bonding as they toss around a sports ball of some kind and before she knows it, they’re signed up for a marriage retreat.
Their story is laugh-out-loud funny and so much fun. I adored these characters and the perfect combination of heart, heat and humor. I’d like to thank the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
