Wild Love (Rose Hill Book 1)

Ford Grant Jr., a newly minted billionaire and music industry entrepreneur, has moved to Rose Hill—a small mountain town in Canada—to convert a run-down barn into a recording studio for his new label, Rose Hill Records. His peaceful plans shatter when twelve-year-old Cora Holland appears at his door with DNA evidence proving she's his biological daughter, the result of a sperm donation Ford made at nineteen. Cora's adoptive father Doug died of ALS, her mother Marilyn is incapacitated by severe depression, and Cora has no other family. Ford drives to Calgary, meets Marilyn, and agrees to become Cora's kinship placement guardian—stepping into parenthood with no preparation.

Meanwhile, Rosalie "Rosie" Belmont is living in Vancouver with her boyfriend Ryan when her boss, Stan Cumberland, sexually assaults her after a meeting. When she reports him, the company fires her instead. Ryan dismisses the incident, urging her to let it go. Devastated and adrift, Rosie returns to Rose Hill and moves into the bunkhouse on her brother West's farm—where she's startled to find Ford, West's best friend, already embedded in her family's orbit. Ford and Rosie share a long, complicated history: she's harbored feelings for him since adolescence, masked by bickering and antagonism. Ford hires Rosie on the spot as his business manager, recognizing the MBA-level talent she undervalues in herself.

Working across facing desks in the dusty barn office, Ford and Rosie fall into a rhythm of charged banter and escalating tension. Ford reveals he once retrieved Rosie's teenage diary after she threw it from a car in heartbreak—he searched multiple times but never read it. Rosie begins tearing out diary pages and leaving them on Ford's desk, each entry exposing a deeper layer of her adolescent feelings for him. Ford, in turn, shows his care through quiet gestures: driving to reach her when she was stranded as a teenager, remembering her favorite snacks, and arriving at Cora's school to ward off unwanted attention from other parents.

Rosie bonds deeply with Cora, picking her up from school daily and nurturing the girl's desire to reinvent herself. When Cora gets her first period at school, Rosie rushes to her side and recreates the comfort traditions her own mother once gave her. Cora begins wearing Rosie's pink scrunchie—a quiet symbol of their growing maternal bond—and even asks Rosie if she'd want to be "Mrs. Grant." Ford, watching this unfold, is profoundly moved.

Rosie finally breaks up with Ryan when he visits Rose Hill; the conversation is surprisingly mutual, both admitting they'd stopped missing each other. That same night at a local pub, Ford—unaware of the breakup and seething with jealousy—confronts Ryan about his neglect of Rosie. Rosie drags Ford outside, where their argument erupts into a passionate kiss against the pub wall. Ford immediately pulls back, insisting they can't pursue a relationship because of their professional dynamic and his friendship with West. Rosie treats his refusal as a challenge.

Their tension continues to build through flirtatious emails, jealous encounters with a painter named Scotty, and confessional late-night conversations. Ford opens up about being ousted from Gramophone, his previous company, by co-founders who betrayed him when he tried to protect artist royalties—a betrayal that left him deeply guarded. Rosie discovers that Ford has worn the tiny key to her diary as a pendant around his neck for ten years. Overwhelmed but resolute, Rosie insists they step back from whatever is building between them, arguing that Cora's stability, West's friendship, and her own need for professional safety must come first. Both are heartbroken.

The restraint doesn't last. When Ford fires Scotty out of jealousy and Rosie confronts him, their argument ignites into a passionate confession and their first time together. Ford accidentally tells Rosie he loves her. Rather than retreating, Rosie asks him to slow down and make love to her tenderly. From that point, their relationship deepens rapidly. Rosie symbolically frees Ford from their past by pulling the diary key from his chain and dropping it into spilled paint on the office floor, declaring she's the woman standing in front of him now—not the girl in the diary. Ford tells West he's in love with Rosie, and West reveals he's known for a long time, giving his full, enthusiastic blessing.

Ford's parents—his rock-star father Ford Senior and sex-therapist mother Gemma—arrive and immediately perceive the relationship. They bond warmly with Cora, with Senior teaching her guitar and gifting her a pick. The family unit that forms around Ford, Rosie, and Cora feels increasingly natural and permanent.

At a glamorous fundraiser at Emerald Lake, Ford publicly introduces Rosie as his girlfriend. But the evening unravels when Rosie learns from a former colleague that Stan Cumberland's company has been mysteriously collapsing—and deduces that Ford has been spending tens of millions buying Vancouver commercial real estate to systematically destroy Stan's business as revenge for what he did to her. Worse, Ford told West her secret about the assault, and West flew to Vancouver to confront Stan, resulting in West's arrest. Rosie is furious—not about the revenge itself, but about the violation of her trust and Ford's use of his privilege without her consent. She quits and leaves.

West is cleared when security footage proves Stan attacked him first, and Stan faces charges. On the drive home, West counsels Ford that a partner must always come first. Ford returns to Rose Hill and makes amends: he deeds Rosie the dock—her favorite place—along with a strip of his property, naming it "Rosie's Dock." Rosie forgives him at the lake, telling him she doesn't want a safe love but a "wild love." Ford offers her co-ownership of the studio as a true business partner, and she accepts.

At Cora's end-of-school party, Cora casually calls Ford "Dad" for the first time—a moment that moves everyone. Marilyn, recovering well, announces she's moving to Rose Hill permanently so Cora can remain close to Ford. In the epilogue, Ford proposes to Rosie by recreating a childhood prank with Cora's help, presenting a pink ring amid theatrical darkness. Rosie says yes, and Ford reveals the studio will be renamed Wild Rose Records—a tribute to the woman who changed everything.