Southbound

For fans of Carley Fortune and Annabel Monaghan, a second-chance romance set in Charleston’s restaurant world, where a chef rebuilding her career runs into the one classmate she never got over—threatening the future she’s carefully crafted.

Andi Wright has one rule: Never fall for another chef. It’s a hard-won lesson—the kind that cost her a job, her reputation, all her money, and most of her pride. Now she’s licking her wounds at her mom’s South Carolina retirement community, working the Sunday omelet station and counting the days until she can rebuild her career back in New York. Head down. Heart closed. Plan intact.

Then Matéo Martin—old culinary school friend, one-time unforgettable hook-up, and the last complication she needs—walks in. He’s charming, talented, and offering her a sous chef position at his celebrated Charleston restaurant. Worse, he comes with Isabel, his irresistible seven-year-old daughter, who has already decided Andi belongs in their lives.

Working alongside the man she’s never quite gotten over was supposed to be temporary. So was Charleston. So was caring. But as her old life starts whispering her name from Manhattan, Andi finds herself wondering whether protecting her career and protecting her heart are still the same thing—or if they never were at all.