Harbor Glass

Before you read

1. The title page calls this "A Newport Billionaire Fake Relationship Romance." What draws you to a pretend relationship as a story engine, and what do you hope it will reveal about the two people involved?
2. The hero is a wealthy heir whose family expects him to follow a script. When a character has money but little freedom, what do you want the story to explore, and what would feel too easy?
3. The heroine comes from a small family business that is working hard to stay open. What does a family business mean to you, and what would you be willing to risk to protect one?
4. A good romance often turns on how two people talk to each other when it is hard. What do you look for in an apology or a confession on the page, and what makes you stop believing one?

Discussion questions

Spoilers ahead. Finish the book first.

1. The book opens on Ronan's yacht at dawn with a tense phone call, and the narration says "Luxury felt loud when no one around you really knew you." How did that first chapter shape your sense of him, and did your opinion change as you learned more about his family?
2. Noelle's life is tangled up in a Holloway legal mess before she has even met Ronan. When she walks into the conference room, Ronan tells her "You're not being bought off." Did his response to the paperwork feel like real fairness to you, or like a wealthy man deciding what is fair on her behalf?
3. Early on Noelle keeps one hard rule, "No dating clients," and later sets rules with Ronan, including "No gifts to soften real problems." How did the book handle the line between work, favors and romance, and where do you think the power in their relationship sat at each stage?
4. Ronan sends a gala dress with a note that says "Wear it only if you choose to." When does attention feel like care, and when does it start to feel like management?
5. At the observatory Noelle tells him that trust "is not the same thing as control." How does each of them define trust, and who changes more over the course of the book?
6. Ronan has been burned before, and Noelle tells him "Silence is armor." Do you agree that his silence was a kind of self-protection that hurt other people? Where did you see her own kind of armor?
7. The child's drawing that Noelle finds, and the family secret behind it, changes the direction of the story. How did you feel about the way Ronan chose to respond, including his line "A child is not an acquisition strategy"?
8. When the story about Noelle breaks, Ronan locks her out before he hears her side, and she hands back the keycard and tells him to work out "the difference between being afraid and being right." Was her reaction fair? Could you forgive a lapse like his, and what would it take?
9. Back at the bakery, Noelle's parents are frightened, her father says "Half-fights are for people with cushions," and a family saying is passed down: "A quiet lie still takes up space in your house." How did her family's worries about money and reputation shape her choices, and who did you most sympathize with?
10. Ronan makes a very public break from his family and later offers Noelle a sketch with a note that says "Your dream deserves witness, not ownership." Did these gestures read to you as growth or as a billionaire's grand gestures, and what did the book suggest about the difference between sharing power and spending it?

Pairing menu

Drink

A mug of hot tea, the kind Ronan pours for Noelle at the old observatory, or a crisp, dry glass of champagne in honor of the glass dome gala.

Bite

Noelle's one-pan lemon pasta with garlic, butter, cream, black pepper and plenty of parmesan, or midnight eggs with cracked pepper and chives on sourdough toast. For dessert, a cardamom bun, a cinnamon roll or a sea-salt chocolate cookie from the Lockhart Bakery case.

Setting

A corner banquette low by the windows, close enough to the water that the harbor feels within reach, or a small-town bakery before opening time with hand-painted gold lettering on the window and the lights just switched on.