2 stars
OVERALL: This is a whirlwind 24 hour insta-love between a perfect angel sweetheart and the creepy billionaire who's been watching her. The sex is AHMAZING(ly meh and cringe) and the second half of the novella is all family drama and happily ever after.
Content warnings: mentioned drug abuse, mentioned homophobia, abusive father, bullying, stalker-vibes, sexually explicit scenes, adult language

I don't remember where I found this recommendation. I think a later book of the series was what I saw suggested, but this first one was available through my library and so short!
And so bad!

It was a whirlwind start, and not a great one. The meet-cute was cute enough and off to a good start, but then as soon as it switches to his POV, he's been watching her on the CCTV cameras for months "trying to work up the nerve" to ask her out... that's just creepy. He's pretty much already in love with her before they ever speak. He's been doing renovations to the coffee shop but won't touch "her chair" because of how she makes that corner look...
He happens to show up at the club where she works, and offers her manager to "pay for her shift" to cover the loss of an employee...?? And has neglected to tell the main female character that he's engaged.
Direct quote: "I was running late because of the man who just shattered my heart and humiliated me at work." But this doesn't stop them from dry humping against the side of a brick building, despite her thinking he's engaged and he's not "explained" yet???
She agrees to meet up with him and then is told that the engagement has been faked, the woman is his bff and she's been too afraid to come out to her family, but she's recently found love and they're going to break off the engagement. So I guess this is supposed to endear us to Nate, because he was willing to help her and is so upstanding for keeping her secret?

Nate takes Abby back to his amazing ginormous penthouse, he alternates feeling incredibly tender/ loving and then feral/dangerously aroused toward Abby. They have magical de-virginizing sex on a recliner in his home theater, and she has about 20 orgasms, but at least there's plenty of condoms. He asks her to move in with him--this is LITERALLY the evening after they first spoke.
Here's a quote from then, ~page 50 (my kindle had a bunch of excerpts at the end, so percentages aren't quite right):
"My brain was still trying to make sense of this crazy scenario: barely twenty-four hours ago, I'd made a date with a handsome stranger, and now I'm the secret girlfriend of Nathan Price, one of the wealthiest men in the city, maybe the world. My boyfriend, if I could call him that, was engaged to someone else. His fiancee was a member of one of the other wealthiest families in New York. She was in love with someone else, and they all lived together in this penthouse. This was something out of a movie or a wacky sitcom. Nate asked me to move in, and a large part of me considered it, but I couldn't do that, could I?"
They both are already having love feelings. I realllllly wanted to DNF, this was just too insta-love and was creepy! But it was so short and I had a free afternoon.

Honestly the second half somehow got a little better?? Since they were already in love and so established and living together--a whole two weeks of bliss!--there can be external conflict and plot. So we meet her amazing and loving family, super supportive of this relationship with its firm foundation.
Then we meet HIS family: dad's a controlling jerk, mom "really did love us" but since the mean dad sent the boys off to boarding school to control mom, she'd sunk into drug abuse and hadn't been the same since then. So the dad confronts the main character but Nate has done the right thing and forgiven his mom's emotional distance of 15+ years and then comes home JUST IN TIME THANK GOODNESS to rescue Abby from the dad's disgusting verbal berating. And his mom stands up to the dad.
Happily ever after, with mom going through rehab, finding religion, living with our main characters to help out because they have 3 kids and one on the way in the epilogue, and thankfully every side character has also found their soulmate and is also cranking out children. THE END.

And all in 156 pages.