The Paradise Problem

Anna Green married Liam Weston, known as West, because it gave her access to subsidized family housing while she studied at UCLA. She believed the divorce papers were signed when graduation caps flew into the air, and that they had each moved on.

Three years later Anna is a struggling artist living paycheck to paycheck, and West is a professor at Stanford. He is one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has no wish to work for the ruthless company his family built. What he does want is his hundred-million-dollar inheritance, and there is a catch. An outdated clause in his grandfather's will withholds the money until he has been happily married for five years.

When his family starts pressing to meet the spouse they have never seen, West has to turn to the one person he dreads bringing before his wealthy parents: his rough-edged, not-quite-ex-wife. Anna is feisty, foul-mouthed and usually splattered with paint.

Once she is among his relatives, his worry changes. He stops wondering whether Anna can play the part and starts fearing that the toxic world of money could corrupt someone so good-hearted, grounded and loyal. West must decide whether his flimsy cover story is worth the risk of losing a real love that grew out of a lie.