Crazy in Love

The fourth installment in the Rosewood River series is set in the small fictional town of Rosewood River, where the wealthy Chadwick family is a local fixture. Bridger Chadwick, the eldest of the Chadwick siblings and the founder of a billion-dollar software company, has long believed that Emilia Taylor, who runs her family's flower shop, the Vintage Rose, is the anonymous author of "The Taylor Tea," a gossip column in the local newspaper that frequently targets his family. After Bridger publicly accuses Emilia in her shop, a local woman recently exposed in the column eggs the Vintage Rose in retaliation. Bridger's brothers Rafe and Easton and his cousin Axel tell him the vandalism is his fault, but he insists Emilia deserves the consequences.

Emilia, who has maintained her innocence from the start, arranges a polygraph test at the local police station with help from her close friends Henley, Lulu, and Eloise, who are respectively engaged to or dating three of the Chadwick men. She passes and delivers the results to Bridger's doorstep, demanding a formal apology. He acknowledges the results look legitimate but refuses to apologize, offering substitute gestures instead: first a professional window-cleaning crew, then a high-end Japanese bidet toilet with a note suggesting they leave the past behind them. Emilia rejects both, insisting she wants words, not money. In solidarity, the Chadwick women boycott the family's weekly pickleball matches and Sunday dinners until Bridger makes things right.

Parallel to this conflict, Emilia's strained relationship with her parents comes into focus. Her mother, Margaret Taylor, criticizes her eating habits and refuses to offer free advertising in the family newspaper, the Rosewood River Review. Her father dismisses her dream of launching an interior design company as a pipe dream, even though Emilia studied design in college and only returned to Rosewood River to run the flower shop when her grandmother fell ill and her parents insisted she come home. Despite having tripled the shop's revenue, Emilia has never been offered any ownership stake and remains a salaried employee.

The apology finally comes on a snowy December night when Emilia's car slides on black ice and crashes into Bridger's truck. He carries her inside, tends to a gash on her forehead, and wraps her in a blanket. Emotionally drained from another painful dinner with her mother, Emilia reveals a long-buried truth: In high school, she was never the one who reported Bridger for ditching school. She was in the principal's office because his then-girlfriend, Cami Rogers, had been bullying her with cruel notes. She could never look at him because she had a crush on him. Bridger realizes he has been wrong about her for over a decade, apologizes sincerely, and drives her home.

From this point, Bridger begins quietly supporting Emilia. He secretly pays for her car repairs and snow tires, sends his sister Emerson, a doctor, by helicopter to examine her head injury, and eventually offers her the chance to redesign his home before his brother Easton's wedding on the property. Emilia arrives with a polished presentation, and they identify his aesthetic as a blend of Scandinavian farmhouse and French chateau. He hires her on the spot.

While sourcing pieces for the renovation, Emilia finds a 19th-century French marble mantel at an antique store in Paris. Bridger decides they will fly there the next day on his private plane. On the flight, he shares his most closely guarded secret: His biological mother, Bridget, who was his adoptive mother Ellie's sister, died giving birth to him, and his biological father spiraled into addiction and eventually died as well. Ellie and her husband Keaton adopted Bridger as a newborn. Emilia responds with empathy, and a deep bond of trust forms between them. Over dinner at a Paris steakhouse, their conversation turns intimate, and they agree to a no-strings-attached fling confined to the trip. Over three days they explore the city, purchase the mantel, and sleep together.

Back in Rosewood River, they resume a professional distance, but Bridger struggles with his growing feelings. On his birthday, which is also the anniversary of his biological mother's death, he arrives home drunk to find Emilia still at his house finishing renovation work. She has left him a cake and a gift. He confesses he cannot stop thinking about her and asks her to date him exclusively, warning he will likely fail at it. Emilia stays the night but refuses to have sex until he confirms his feelings sober. The next morning he reaffirms everything, and she agrees to date him.

Their relationship deepens through the holiday season. On Christmas morning, Bridger's brother Rafe proposes to Lulu by jumping out of a giant gift box; she reflexively punches him in the face, sending him into the Christmas tree, but says yes. Emilia spends the holiday with the Chadwicks and calls it the best Christmas she has ever had.

As the renovation nears completion, Emilia tells Bridger she loves him during an intimate moment. He does not say it back. His silence compounds with outside pressures: A new "Taylor Tea" column predicts he will break her heart, and Margaret remarks at a family dinner that everyone in town knows how things will end between them. On Valentine's Day, Bridger fills Emilia's house with her favorite garden roses, then reveals he has secretly arranged a lead designer position for her at a luxury hotel in New York, complete with an apartment and a plan for Beatrice, Emilia's employee at the Vintage Rose, to take over the flower shop. Emilia sees through the gesture immediately: He is not offering her a dream but pushing her away because her declaration of love terrified him. She calls him a coward and orders him to leave.

Bridger goes to his parents' house, where his young nephew Cutler offers simple wisdom: Families want to be together. His mother tells him his fear is the real problem and insists he return to therapy. Over the next three weeks, Bridger sees his former therapist, Debbie, three times a week, texting Emilia the same message each morning: "Don't give up on me. I'm working on it." She does not respond but does not block him.

During their separation, Emilia wins a contract to design renovations for vacation rental properties, a job she lands on her own merit. She also negotiates 20 percent ownership of the Vintage Rose, with Beatrice taking over daily operations, and establishes firm boundaries with her parents. In a separate lunch, Margaret opens up for the first time, admitting she had not wanted a second child and experienced difficulties after Emilia's birth. She apologizes, and though the conversation is a starting point rather than a resolution, something shifts between them.

Bridger, having worked through his fears in therapy, goes to Emilia at the flower shop. He explains that he has always blamed himself for his biological mother's death and his father's addiction, and that those fears drove him to push away the woman he loves. He tells her he is in love with her and wants forever. Emilia tells him she would have waited forever, and they reconcile.

In the weeks that follow, Emilia moves into Bridger's newly renovated home. The story closes with Bridger watching Emilia in their shared kitchen and telling her he is looking at forever. The epilogue hints at the next book in the series: Wren Waterstone, the former best friend of Bridger's cousin Axel, has returned to Rosewood River, and Axel is clearly unsettled by her reappearance.