The Montecito Rules - Jeff Nelson

In Montecito, rules are made to protect the powerful-and keep everyone else out.

Sofia Reyes serves the champagne in Montecito. She's not supposed to drink it. And she's definitely not supposed to fall for the heir.

For five years, she's built her catering business one flawless event at a time-moving through California's coastal elite without ever being part of them. The rules are simple: smile, serve, and never forget where you stand.

Alexander Whitmore has never had to learn those rules. Heir to a $420 million trust, he's spent years in New York trying to outrun his family's world. But when he returns home, he discovers his late father's unfinished project-and the woman already building it on her own.

Same dream. Opposite worlds. And a pull neither of them can ignore.

In Montecito, that's not a love story. That's a liability.

Catherine Pemberton has spent decades controlling the Whitmore fortune-and everyone attached to it. She didn't survive three generations of old money to lose it to a caterer with ambition and her nephew's attention. She won't make a scene. She'll just make sure Sofia's life gets very, very small.

The trust has conditions. And the clock is already running. Every step Sofia and Alex take toward each other gives Catherine exactly what she needs to tear them apart.

A slow-burn, forbidden romance about class, ambition, and what it costs to choose love in a world designed to keep people in their place.