The Assist

Six years of being invisible has made Olivia Chen the most indispensable person at one of New York's most ruthless sports agencies-and the one nobody remembers when the champagne flows. When Marcus Hollis, an All-NBA point guard with a contract imploding faster than his ego can handle, lands back in Manhattan needing damage control, Olivia is assigned to manage the fallout. The problem: he's not used to anyone saying no, and she's constitutionally incapable of telling him what he wants to hear. Their clashes ignite in the war room at midnight, drafting strategies and dodging calls from his volatile head coach. Hollis is brash, impossibly talented, and accustomed to bending the world to his will. Olivia is armed with contract clauses he's never read and a refusal to be impressed. What neither expects is how the pressure of a collapsing season and a career on the line will crack them both open. As the regular season unfolds and playoff stakes rise, the tension between them transforms into something neither can name or ignore. She's spent her whole adult life as the support system for other people's dreams, swallowing her own. He's spent his trusting no one past the three-point line. A leaked photo, a brutal loss, and a contract extension that threatens to destroy everything will force them both to choose. In the roar of a New York basketball season, with a championship within reach, two people discover that the most courageous play isn't made on the court-it's made in the quiet hours when you let someone see who you really are. But what happens when letting someone in means risking everything you've built?