She still believes in happy endings. He gave up on them long ago. But one impossible assignment might rewrite both their stories.

Iris Cooke writes the kind of feel-good stories people adore—heartwarming, uplifting, and always full of hope. But when she’s assigned to profile Jack Jones, a guarded millionaire with a cold reputation and no time for sentiment, she’s forced to choose between protecting her own outlook… or writing the truth.

Jack doesn’t want a profile. And he definitely doesn’t want Iris poking around his life with her notebooks, her questions, and her relentless optimism. But when a chance meeting with a grieving, old woman named Peggy draws them both into something bigger, the walls they’ve built start to shift.

As old grief resurfaces and his carefully controlled public image starts to crumble, Jack and Iris are pushed far outside their comfort zones—into a place where connection feels risky, attraction catches them off guard, and honesty demands more courage than either of them expected.

Do We Really Have To Do This? is the fourth standalone novel in The Next Chapter Collection. It’s a heartfelt story of grief, guarded hearts, and the quiet courage it takes to risk something real.