The Inheritance Clause

About the Book

What if saving everything you loved meant faking everything you felt?

Naomi Zhang is watching her life’s work—the vibrant Riverside Community Center—crumble. Funds have dried up, and hope is dwindling. Then, an unexpected lifeline: her estranged, billionaire grandfather’s will. Millions are within reach, enough to secure the center’s future and her own. But salvation comes with an impossible, outrageous string attached.

To inherit, Naomi must be in a “stable, committed, and publicly verifiable romantic relationship” for one continuous year. With her love life non-existent and her focus solely on saving her community, the condition is a cruel joke.

Enter Jackson Reid, the impeccably tailored, ambitious lawyer connected to the estate. He’s pragmatic, driven, and seemingly Naomi’s polar opposite. Yet, he too has reasons for wanting Walter Li’s complex estate settled smoothly. Facing financial ruin and a predatory developer circling her beloved center, Naomi agrees to Jackson’s audacious proposal: a meticulously planned charade.

They are an unlikely pair: the passionate idealist and the coolly logical attorney. Forced proximity, clashing lifestyles, and the constant pressure of scrutiny from a skeptical estate executor ignite an unexpected spark. From awkward rehearsals in Jackson’s sterile apartment to high-stakes public appearances, the line between their performance and burgeoning, inconvenient feelings begins to blur.

As they delve deeper into Walter Li’s enigmatic past, uncovering secret letters and hidden motivations, Naomi and Jackson realize their “agreement” is far more complicated than a simple business arrangement. The old man’s meddling seems to reach from beyond the grave, pushing them to confront not just their fabricated romance, but their own deepest fears, ambitions, and the surprising, undeniable connection growing between them.

With fortunes, careers, and the heart of a community hanging in the balance, can a relationship built on lies navigate the treacherous path to a truth that could set them free—or cost them everything? Can Naomi save her center, and can Jackson find a life beyond the boardroom, before their carefully constructed world comes crashing down?

Dive into “The Inheritance Clause,” a heartfelt and witty story of unexpected love, second chances, and discovering that the most valuable legacies are the ones written on the heart.

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