A Hart's Square, Portland Business Park Book
by
Joe Markarian was sick of every decision being made for him, so he got out from under his father's thumb by joining the Air Force right after college. He’s just five years from making his twenty when he gets word that his estranged father is in the hospital and needs his help.
Riley McCoy is a genius – just ask him – who’s been looking for love in all the wrong people. He has good friends, a niece he dotes on, and a sister who has the happy family he dreams of, but he yearns for a love of his own. If only he didn’t keep moving too fast and scaring his partners off.
Joe and Riley are surprised to see each other at Markarian Scientific the morning after their unconventional meeting the night before. Joe’s taking care of his dad’s business, and Riley is the chief scientist in charge of the project. Will they be able to keep things professional, or will a snarky AI change their lives forever?
AI Think I Love You is the first full-length book in Walter Hopgood and Lisa Witte's Hart's Square series. Come find romance in our Portland Business Park.
- 1 To Be Read list
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 5
Romantic Content: 5
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Bisexual, Gay
Protagonist 1 Age: 36-45
Protagonist 2 Age: 26-35
Word Count: 45,277
Setting: Portland, OR
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
Joe Markarian sat at the small breakfast bar in his sparsely decorated quarters, wondering if he’d ever truly be in charge of his own life.
His father had made all the decisions right up until Joe turned 18, alternately ignoring and scoffing at his wishes. Joe enjoyed as much freedom of choice as any other college student on a degree track before joining the Air Force, who’d run his life for the past 15 years.
Just that morning, he’d been studying his Thrift Saving and High-3 totals, to make sure his military retirement financials were still on track. His plan had been to retire at 42 with full benefits and then do as he chose for the rest of his life. Only five more years of taking orders and he’d finally be controlling his own destiny.
Then a grinning courier had turned up at his door and handed him a letter from his father’s lawyer, turning his life upside down for the foreseeable future. Elizabeth wrote:
READ MOREIt is extremely urgent that I speak with you. Your father had a heart attack and is in critical but stable condition at All Saints Hospital in Portland, Oregon. He has several surgeries ahead of him and, as his only living relative, we need you here.
Nothing like a brush with death to bring an estranged father and son back together, he thought. It was Joe’s sense of duty, rather than any family feeling, that had him scrambling for the 24-hour Red Cross number and researching flight times to Portland. The world Joe grew up in treated families as obligations; nothing more than the product of hard-negotiated business agreements. He’d seen it with both sets of grandparents and even more so with his parents, who were married off to force a ‘merger’ (read: hostile corporate takeover) between two rival companies.
Joe had joined the Air Force right out of college rather than marry a woman – who happened to be the only child of his father’s bitter business rival – in order to effect a semi-hostile takeover of the competition. Their blazing row ended when Joe lost his temper and shouted, “Because I’m gay, Dad!”
COLLAPSE
Walter Hopgood
Lisa D. Witte
