Love Theoretically

by Ali Hazelwood · 2023

Theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway lives two very different lives. By day she’s an adjunct professor, grading labs and teaching thermodynamics while chasing tenure. By night she moonlights as a professional fake girlfriend, using her people‑pleasing talent to become whatever her client needs. The arrangement works—until the handsome, arrogant brother of her favorite client, Jack Smith, walks into her world. Jack is the experimental physicist who destroyed her mentor’s career and now heads MIT’s physics department, the very obstacle standing between Elsie and the tenure she craves. As academic rivalries flare and fake‑dating antics turn real, Elsie must decide whether to fight a scholarly war or surrender to a chemistry that could rewrite both their futures.