The Amalfi Assignment

As the founder of The Departure Lounge, Audrey has sent hundreds of women to extraordinary places around the world. Most came back with better tans. Some came back with better lives. And one of them, a forty-one-year-old pediatric surgeon who alphabetized her spice drawer by the Latin name of each plant, came back with a lemon farmer.

Clara Whitfield hasn't taken a vacation in four years. When she finally books a private villa on the Amalfi Coast, she's ready for two weeks of silence, solitude, and absolutely no one needing anything from her. Then she opens the door and finds a man standing in her kitchen, shirtless, making pasta.

The villa was double-booked. It's peak August. There's nothing else available. And the only working shower is on his side of the house.

What follows is a summer of shared terraces, village festivals, midnight arguments about olive oil, and the slow, terrifying realization that the life Clara built to be indispensable might not be the life she actually wants.

The Departure Lounge: every love story starts with a destination.