A Pickleball Girl’s One-Week Arrangement

On the eve of The Victors—the biggest professional pickleball tournament of the year—a massive sand storm tears through Palm Springs, and a flying tent pole knocks Maria Gutiérrez unconscious. She wakes up in the bed of a stranger. A very handsome, very shirtless stranger named Toby Lind, a pro pickleball player with green eyes, a crooked grin, and absolutely no interest in a relationship.

The feeling is mutual. Maria is still dodging her relentless ex-boyfriend, a powerful casino executive who won’t take no for an answer. Toby is scraping by on tournament winnings and a side hustle, desperate to prove that walking away from a six-figure tech career wasn’t the worst decision of his life. Neither of them has room for romance.

So when Toby’s sponsor pressures them into faking a relationship for tournament week, they strike a deal: one week, five rules, and absolutely no kissing on the lips. Maria gets an ex-boyfriend blocker. Toby gets a brand boost. Easy.

Except nothing about this is easy.

Between candlelit margaritas, viral photo ops, nighttime pickleball on a homemade court, and the kind of chemistry that makes their no-kissing rule nearly impossible to follow, their fake arrangement starts feeling dangerously real. And when Maria discovers that the man threatening her beloved family restaurant is the same one who once claimed to love her, the stakes become bigger than any Grand Slam title.

Now Maria must fight for the legacy her great-grandparents built—and decide whether the guy she agreed to pretend with for seven days might be worth keeping for a lifetime.

A Pickleball Girl’s One-Week Arrangement is a closed-door, fake-dating contemporary romance for fans of Katherine Center, Kristan Higgins, and Sarah Adams—with the heart of a love letter to family, found community, and the fastest-growing sport in America.