Five years of history. Four weeks on the road. Two rival copywriters learning love is the hardest sell of all.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from If Not For You by Ellen O’Clover, which releases on September 15th 2026.
Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town.
Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just…there, with his golden-boy smirk and the familiar gaze that never fails to taunt her across a crowded room.
Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him—and earn the promotion she covets.
During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious truth: the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.
EXCERPT
“It’ll be fine,” Iris says. “They probably want us to see what they’re working with so that when they cut someone, we under-stand what they aren’t looking for.”
“Brutal,” Dexter says, shuddering. I tug at the hem of my dress. Black wrap, black hose, black block heels. You look like Morticia, Dexter said when I showed up. Ninety-five percent of my wardrobe is black, formal attire being no exception. “As long as it’s not us.”
“It’s not going to be us,” Iris and I say at the same time. And then Campbell Porter steps into the Four Seasons.
I hear him before I see him, that voice I’d know anywhere. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder and he’s wearing a suit—blue, tailored, too bright. Clean-shaven, the scatter of freckles over his nose sun-darkened and striking here at the end of summer. I picture him on the L platform in January. His brown eyes meet mine, and it feels like a burn.
“The Art Room,” he says happily. That’s the thing about Camp-bell: he’s jovial.
“Campbell,” Iris says, extending a hand. She met him at Cannes; Dexter, too. “Good to see you again.”
But it’s not good. Being around Campbell makes me feel like I’ve stepped behind an X-ray machine, like my bones are exposed. I think of Ava, last week, in our apartment. There’s no denying it: all at once, I do feel attack-y.
“This is Soraya,” Campbell says, gesturing at the woman to his right. She’s a vision in navy slacks and a silk blouse. “Art direction.”
“Me, too,” Dexter says, and they shake hands. “Dexter.”
“And, French,” Campbell says, his eyes moving over me, “you know Nolan.”
Nolan Reeves—cold and misogynistic and right there behind
Campbell’s shoulder, his gaze lighting on mine. The creative director I liked least from my summer at Slater Faust. When I’d told him at our intern send-off party that I had an interview lined up at the Art Room, he’d looked at me over his wineglass and said, Of course you do. It’s our job to make you a marketable writer other agencies want. Like all the credit was his, not mine, for my work there that summer. Now, he nods curtly in my direction before offering his hand to Iris.
“Feeling ready?” Soraya asks. Her accent is British. “I know we were a bit surprised to learn we’d all be here together.”
“Us, too,” Dexter says, adjusting his bolo. “Has anyone seen the OverComm team?”
“Here already, I imagine.” Nolan speaks softly, like a threat. “They tend to be early.”
“Should we head up?” Iris asks, checking her watch. “The conference room’s on the second floor.”
Nolan gestures toward the staircase. “After you.”
In spite of my extremely concerted efforts, Campbell and I wind up ascending the stairs side by side. I catch a waft of his cologne—light and linen—and want to sprint to the second floor to gain distance from him.
“You look nice,” he says, eyes sweeping over my dress. I wonder if he pities me, now, after that night at the L stop.
“Don’t flatter me,” I whisper. Dexter and Iris are chatting ahead of us, Soraya and Nolan bringing up the rear.
He laughs, a husky sound. The last time he saw me in a dress, in France, he’d said the same thing—though I hadn’t believed it then, either.
“Mattie French,” Campbell says. “Never could take a compliment.”
“Campbell Porter,” I mimic. “Never could give one from the heart.”
He puts a hand over his chest. He still wears that gold signet ring on his right pinky. “You wound me.”
“I’m sure that’s not possible,” I say, and then we step into the conference room. It’s enormous and distinctly bridal: padded white chairs with rounded backs, billowing drapes clouded around floor-to-ceiling windows. People must get married in this room all the time. It makes standing here next to Campbell feel even more jarring.
“There’s OverComm,” Campbell says, though when I glance at him he’s tipped to speak into Soraya’s ear, not mine. She nods, her dark eyes unblinking and perceptive.
There are folded place cards set at tables in three corners of the room—OverComm, The Art Room, Slater Faust. The fourth corner is arranged with a podium, a projector, and a long, panel-style table.
“We should prepare,” Nolan says, nodding to Campbell.
I watch Campbell turn to me in slow motion. I’ve spent so much time dreading him—so much time listening to people talk about If Not You, so much time wondering what I could’ve done to win that Lion, so much time being furious—that finally sharing a physical space with him makes me feel delirious. I could just as easily slap him or burst out laughing.
“Good luck,” he tells me. His blond lashes lower, turning his eyes copper. Everyone else has dispersed to our assigned tables, so it’s only Campbell and me squared off by the door like chess pieces.
“Don’t need it,” I say.
Campbell grins. The asymmetric slash of it, smug as ever. Again, he says exactly what he said at Cannes. “May the best man win.”
I respond the same way I did then, too. “Woman.”
