When pastry chef Cora Delacroix is forced out of her home in the middle of winter, the last place she expects to end up is back in Liverpool, standing inside the house that once belonged to Gus Pemberton — alongside Sander Keane, the man she left seven years ago.

Gus's will comes with one final condition: Cora and Sander must share the house and maintain a genuine household for 180 days, or lose both the property and the workshop attached to it.

For Sander, a careful, procedure-driven locksmith raising his fourteen-year-old niece Esme, the house represents stability. For Cora, it could become the foundation of the food business she has been fighting to build. But living together means confronting the choices that ended their relationship — including the future Sander once decided on without her, and the plans Cora kept secret in return.

As repairs, money problems, outside job offers and the demands of the trust begin to close in, old habits return. Sander tries to protect the people he loves by making decisions for them. Cora keeps an escape route open before anyone can choose to leave her first. And Esme, tired of adults deciding what is best without asking, forces them both to confront the lesson at the heart of the house:

Being loved is not the same as being consulted.