The Dinner Reservation

The Dinner Reservation
Series: The Binder Files, Book 3 Hero: Marco Bell Heat Level: Steamy

She was using him for the table. He was writing about her. The moral high ground is about to disappear.

Three impossible restaurants. That's all Mia wants. Marco Bell - food critic, impeccable taste, profile that reads like a man who knows exactly what he's doing - has access to tables with three-month waitlists. She files him Category Three: Culinary Passport. Clean scope. Clear exit. The food will be extraordinary. It won't mean anything.
What Mia doesn't know: Marco is writing a piece about what it's like to be a date on a dating app - from the date's perspective. He matched her because her profile is a masterclass in calibrated presentation. She is his subject. He has a notebook.
At the third restaurant - the best tasting menu she will remember for years - she puts down her fork and figures it out. He doesn't deny it. He also points out that she was using him for the tables. The pause between them is the longest five seconds in the book. Then they argue on the sidewalk in a way neither of them manages, and it's the best conversation either of them has had in years.
Two people equally guilty. Two people who only stopped performing at the exact same moment. The remaining courses are still on the table.

Perfect for readers who love:
a plot-twist reveal that flips the moral dynamic, heroes who cook after years of only critiquing, mutual deception that becomes mutual honesty, and romances where the final scene involves terrible homemade pasta and absolutely no regrets.

Role Reversal • Neither Is Who They Say • The Observer Observed