About the book

Tess Bennett never wanted a shortcut. She built her bakery from nothing — early mornings, long hours, and a stubborn refusal to let anyone turn her dream into something it’s not.

Leo Ashford has never had to earn anything the hard way. Until a viral dare drops him into Tess’s kitchen as her employee for thirty days. He’s out of place. Overqualified. Completely unprepared. And for the first time in his life… he has to listen.

What starts as a challenge becomes something quieter. Flour-dusted mornings. Shared routines. A connection neither of them planned for.

But Tess has rules: don’t rely on anyone, don’t lose control, and never let someone else define your future. Leo breaks one. What he thought was helping threatens everything she’s built — and trust, once lost, doesn’t come back easily. Now he has to prove he can be something more than the man he’s always been. Not by fixing her life. But by standing beside it.

Dough & Devotion is a slow-burn contemporary romance about trust, ambition, and choosing love the right way — even when it’s harder.