Only With You, by Lauren Layne

Sophie is a free spirit with charm for days and quick wit. She’s intelligent and educated, but has yet to find what she really wants to do with her life and dropped out of law school and has been working at a bar for the last few years. During a weekend bachelorette party in Vegas, she gets stuck in an elevator with a gorgeous stranger that takes one look at her exaggerated party outfit and mistakes her for a hooker! Rather than correcting him, she storms off, returns home, and re-evaluates her life, and quits her job. 

She’s not just surprised, but shocked when the elevator man, Grayson Wyatt, shows up at her home on the arm of her “more perfect” older sister Brynn. They have a brief confrontation and decide to be civil with each other. Sophie introduces her BFF Will as her “date” to try and save face around him. The family dinner is uncomfortable to say the least, and when they discover that Sophie quit her job, and Grayson is suddenly without an assistant, they convince him to hire her! Hoping she will decline, he goes along with the idea only to find that Sophie accepts the challenge just to get under his skin. 

She starts work, continues to irritate him, and tries to break his icy cold exterior and bland personality. He tries to reign her in, and finds that he’s impressed by the way she can charm the entire office – something that he hasn’t been able to master. While they continue to irritate each other, they cannot deny that they are attracted to each other. When their attraction explodes into an encounter, they both try to fight it and the tension between them becomes stronger. They eventually rely on each other for work, and Gray finds that he really needs Sophie in his life – she compliments him and brings him out of his shell.  Sophie finds that she is falling for her boss.

This is my first experience with Lauren Layne and I’m absolutely a fan. While I thought Gray was a bit of an ass at first, and overly hard on Sophie, it felt like the old “the bigger they are the harder they fall”. It took a bit of time for Gray to melt his icy exterior than I would have liked, but he’s redeemed by the end of the book. 

This contemporary romance has a parallel story between Brynn and Will that will be teased out in the next book. I’m looking forward to reading the follow-up and what happens between these two!

*Promotional copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*