Unfortunately Yours

Set in St. Helena, a wine-country town in California's Napa Valley, the novel follows the enemies-to-lovers romance between a struggling ex-Navy SEAL winemaker and a disgraced financial professional who enter a marriage of convenience to solve each other's problems.

August Cates, a thirty-five-year-old former Navy SEAL, has sunk his life savings into Zelnick Cellar, a vineyard he opened to honor his late best friend Sam Zelnick, a fellow SEAL who dreamed of becoming a winemaker before he was killed in combat. August has no winemaking expertise, and his wine is terrible. At a local competition, Natalie Vos, the daughter of legendary Napa winemakers and one of the judges, forces herself to swallow his offering while the others spit it out. Humiliated, August makes a crude remark, and Natalie throws wine in his face. Months earlier, the two met at a wine event and felt powerful attraction, but their connection collapsed when Natalie insulted his wine and August's pride turned their chemistry into hostility. Out of options, August plans to leave St. Helena.

Natalie's circumstances are equally dire. She was the youngest partner and only woman at her New York hedge fund, but a catastrophic trade that lost the firm roughly a billion dollars led to her ouster. Her fiancé, Morrison Talbot III, broke off their engagement because she no longer fit their professional world. Now living in the guest house at Vos Vineyard with her brother Julian, Natalie asks her mother, Corinne, to release her trust fund so she can return to New York and start a new investment firm. Corinne explains that the trust fund's terms, set by Natalie's absent father, Dalton Vos, require the recipient to be both gainfully employed and married. Dalton's old friend Ingram Meyer, the loan officer at the local credit union, serves as trustee and will enforce the terms strictly. Dalton abandoned the family years earlier for Italy, and neither Natalie nor Corinne will ask him for help.

After Natalie's car nearly hits August's cat, Menace, the two end up at his house, where August tends scratches the panicked animal left on her chest. Their forced proximity reignites mutual attraction. That evening, Natalie watches August give away his remaining wine to a neighbor, the only person who ever liked it. Seeing his generosity, she proposes a deal: a fake marriage that would satisfy her trust fund's marriage requirement while making her an employee of Zelnick Cellar, attaching the Vos name to his winery and strengthening his loan application with Ingram. August agrees, driven by feelings he is not yet ready to name.

At a wine train event the next day, August arrives unannounced, kisses Natalie in front of her family, and proposes with a ring. Corinne recognizes the ruse and warns that Ingram is present and vigilant: If they proceed, they must share a home, hold a proper wedding, and maintain the act convincingly. Forced into a private booth on the train, their combative banter escalates into a heated kiss neither can dismiss as performance. They agree on a one-month timeline.

Their bond deepens through mutual vulnerability. Natalie shares her history of acting out in high school to get her family's attention, behavior that culminated in a rehab stay, while August confesses his guilt over Sam's death. A persistent tension develops around August's refusal to let Natalie help with winemaking or set foot in his production barn, a sore point that mirrors the exclusion she experienced growing up in a family that overlooked her. They channel their friction into a prank war that reveals the playful foundation beneath their hostility.

A pivotal complication arises when Commander Brian Zelnick, August's former commanding officer and Sam's father, visits and offers a two-hundred-thousand-dollar investment in his late son's name. August accepts, but the money means he no longer needs the bank loan that justified the marriage. He hides the investment from Natalie, fearing she would refuse his help if the arrangement became one-sided.

The wedding takes place at Vos Vineyard with Julian as best man. August reads handwritten vows promising to protect Natalie and come whenever she calls. She gives him a laminated card bearing Sam's photo and the U.S. Navy hymn; he presents a framed ticket stub from the event where they first met. On their wedding night, August insists they will not have sex until Natalie can assure him she will not wake with regrets.

A dinner with Ingram becomes a turning point. Natalie delivers an impassioned defense of August's dedication and surprises the table with expert analysis of VineWatch, an aerial imaging service the family vineyard is considering. Ingram declares himself satisfied and agrees to release the trust fund. That night, Natalie admits she counts the minutes until they breathe the same air, and they consummate the marriage. When August spots Morrison's engagement announcement on her laptop and lashes out, he breaks their pattern by staying and reading her the rest of his wedding vows.

When a flash flood traps a local family in a submerged minivan, August transforms into the soldier he once was, using a grappling hook and cable system to pull each person to safety. Watching from the truck, Natalie realizes she is in love with him. She tells August she wants to renegotiate their timeline, and he responds that he is her man for as long as she needs him.

The final crisis arrives when August falls asleep at Sam's grave and misses a scheduled bank meeting with Ingram about his business loan, leaving Natalie alone at the appointment. She then discovers that Corinne and Julian held a VineWatch meeting without inviting her. Feeling shut out by her family and her husband, Natalie enters the barn without permission, filters and corrects his wine using the expertise he never let her contribute, and flies to New York for a meeting with a potential investor. August returns to find her gone, discovers the dramatic improvement in his wine, and realizes his pride kept her locked out. He flies after her.

At a Manhattan restaurant, Natalie's investor meeting falters as Morrison arrives with his new partner. August walks in wearing a suit, redirects all attention, and praises Natalie's resilience to the investor. She delivers a confident pitch that earns a promise to consider the deal. In the hotel lobby, August tells Natalie he must protect himself because she belongs in New York. She surprises him by choosing St. Helena permanently, telling him he is her real husband. He tells her he loves her for the first time.

Back home, Commander Zelnick inadvertently reveals the investment to Natalie. August confesses he married her purely out of love. Natalie shares her own secret: On their wedding day, Dalton offered to release her trust fund if she canceled the wedding, and she refused because she wanted to marry August. They realize neither of them needed the marriage; they simply wanted each other. August opens the barn to Natalie permanently, telling her the winery belongs to both of them.

An epilogue set eight years later shows August and Natalie running Zelnick Cellar as a thriving winery with three daughters. When their middle daughter's dance partner fails to appear for a recital, August steps in and performs the routine beside her in a miniature sequined top hat, capturing his transformation from a man who shut others out to one who shows up completely for the people he loves.