Rival to the CEO

Melanie Fox arrives at her high-powered new role as Head of Sales with confidence to spare, only to find herself immediately at odds with Vanessa Reiss, the formidable CEO who runs the company like a force of nature. What begins as a sharp professional disagreement over product strategy quickly reveals itself as something more complicated, as the tension between the two women refuses to stay neatly in the boardroom. Book five in the CEO series, it delivers a tightly wound workplace romance built on the familiar charge of two strong-willed people who can't seem to agree on anything except that they can't stop thinking about each other.

Abby Craden brings a dry, grounded quality to Melanie's perspective that keeps the story from tipping into melodrama. The short runtime suits the material well, and Craden's nuanced delivery gives both the professional friction and the underlying attraction room to land without overplaying either.