The Montecito Rules

She was meant to be invisible. He refused to look away.

In Montecito, rules are made to protect the powerful — and keep everyone else out.

Sofia Reyes serves the champagne in Montecito. She's not supposed to drink it. And she's definitely not supposed to fall for the heir.

For five years, Sofia has built her catering business one flawless event at a time — moving through California's coastal elite without ever being part of them. The rules are simple: smile, serve, and never forget where you stand.

Alexander Whitmore has never had to learn those rules. Heir to a $420 million trust, he's spent years in New York trying to outrun his family's world. But when he returns home, he discovers his late father's unfinished project — and the woman already building it on her own. Same dream. Opposite worlds. And a pull neither of them can ignore.

Catherine Pemberton has spent decades controlling the Whitmore fortune — and everyone attached to it. She didn't survive three generations of old money to lose it to a caterer with ambition and her nephew's attention. She won't make a scene. She'll just make sure Sofia's life gets very, very small.

A slow-burn forbidden romance about class, ambition, and what it costs to choose love in a world designed to keep people in their place.

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Romance Contemporary Fiction California Class & Power

The Story Behind the Novel

Where this book came from — the real Montecito, the family that lived behind the gates, and the cousin who watched it all happen.

The Inspiration for The Montecito Rules

I grew up on the edges of one of the most powerful family fortunes of the early twentieth century — and spent my teenage summers on a 72-acre Montecito estate that taught me everything I would later need to know about who belonged and who served. This is the story behind the novel, and the cousin whose life made it impossible to look away.