Taking My Time: A cozy Romance

She built her sanctuary to escape the frantic noise of the city. He stayed in the room to make sure it wouldn't collapse.**Delphine thought she had finally mastered the layout of her new life. After leaving London behind, she transformed a ruined Sussex granary into *The Attic*—a thriving, artisanal sanctuary dedicated to slow living and her intricate botanical art. She is independent, successful, and entirely sovereign. But when an ambitious London curator arrives with a glittering contract to buy her out, and a wave of polished city suitors begins to crowd her air, the walls of her fragile peace begin to fracture. She is terrified that if she stops running, the ghosts of her past corporate burnout will finally catch up to her.Enter Julian Vance.Julian is a brilliant, unpolished carpenter who lives by a simpler blueprint: know the grain, respect the material, and never run from a storm. He doesn’t deploy smooth, calculated performances or try to edit Delphine’s lines; he simply anchors the corner of her shop with his quiet, grounded presence. But beneath his storm-grey eyes and protective, iron exterior lies a raw, unyielding heat that threatens to shatter all of Delphine's carefully curated boundaries.When a devastating winter gale mounts a full-scale assault on the Sussex coast, the pretenders retreat inland, leaving Delphine and Julian trapped together in the roaring, chaotic dark. Forced into intense proximity to brace the crumbling timbers of her dream, the suffocating silence between them snaps. In a night ruled by pure, untamed vigour and deep-seated emotional resilience, Delphine must decide if she has the courage to stop outrunning her anxiety. To save her sanctuary, she will have to learn where to draw her lines—and trust a love that refuses to walk out when the building groans. Read more