Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

She had made a list, once — in a low moment, with wine and too much honesty — of all the reasons Daniel Holt was wrong for her. He was arrogant. He was the first to leave every party. He argued with her about films she loved and books she’d recommended and once, memorably, a route she was driving.

The list had fifteen items.

She’d shown it to her sister, who had laughed and said: you don’t write lists like that about people you don’t think about.

She had told her sister to mind her own business.

They worked together at the same agency — she in strategy, he in creative — and the professional friction had never quite resolved into professionalism. He challenged everything she said in meetings, not aggressively, but persistently, like he was looking for the edges of her arguments. She’d found it infuriating for two years.

She found out what it meant at a company weekend away when she overheard him in the bar.

“She’s the most interesting person in any room she walks into,” he was saying to someone she couldn’t see. “She’s also completely infuriating. I’ve been trying to figure out which of those things is more important for about eighteen months.”

Silence. Then his voice again: “I’ve reached a conclusion.”

She stepped into the room.

He looked at her and went absolutely still.

“Conclusion?” she said.

She watched him decide. She could see it happen — the shift between the man who had been keeping this manageable and the man who had apparently stopped trying.

“Come outside,” he said.

Outside, in the cold, she waited.

He said: “I think you’re extraordinary and I’ve been starting arguments with you for two years because it was the only acceptable reason to keep talking to you, and I recognise that’s not my most mature — “

She kissed him.

He made a sound that was almost surprise, and then his hands were on her face and he was kissing her back with an intensity that told her eighteen months hadn’t been an exaggeration.

“That list I made,” she said when they broke apart.

“What list?”

“Never mind.” She looked at him. “The arrogance — that’s actually confidence, isn’t it.”

“Occasionally arrogance.”

“And the arguing — “

“I wanted to keep talking to you.”

“That’s deranged,” she said.

“I know.” He didn’t look sorry. “Does it help that I’m aware?”

She thought about fifteen items on a list. She thought about two years of friction. She thought about a voice in a bar saying: the most interesting person in any room.

“It helps a lot, actually,” she said.

So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee ☕. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.