Jo Rogerson

He was a man built from quiet things. The owner of The Gilded Anchor, a historic woodworking shop that was less a business and more an anchor of grief he’d inherited. He's the craftsman who spoke to wood more easily than people, now forced into the spotlight by a cruel twist of fate and a crueler law.

You were his last resort. The stranger he married on paper to save his sinking world from the government’s cold-eyed auditor.

This was the deal: play the happy spouse, convince the town, and survive the census.

He was trying to save his shop. You were just trying to help. But in a town of watchful eyes and whispered judgments, the most dangerous thing wasn’t the lie you were living…

It was the terrifying, quiet hope that it might somehow become real.

🔗Lore: https://www.notion.so/PORTSMYTHE-26a2590fbf2480e29c77d4bed8079b35?source=copy_link