Hearts Before Midnight

When burnout stops being a private shame and becomes the start of a different life, two office colleagues must learn how to love each other without losing themselves to the work that first brought them together. Cassie Morgan used to be the person everyone relied on. The senior lead who could pull one more late night, fix one more crisis, and smile through one more town hall. Until the evening her body finally refused to play along and she ended up on the bathroom floor, heart racing, mind blank, knowing that if she stood up and went back out there nothing would ever change. Months later, Cassie has clawed her way back—not to the same version of success, but to a fragile, different one. She returns to Lyra North with new rules and an unusually honest pilot project: status dots that show when people are at their limit, no–meeting blocks that are meant to be real, comp–time tracked instead of quietly lost, and a monthly circle where staff can say the things that never fit in performance reviews. She has promised herself one thing: no more selling her pain as an inspirational anecdote to make other people feel better about doing nothing. Eli Hart has built a career out of strategy decks and scenario planning, but he has seen too many colleagues pushed to the edge and quietly replaced. When he hears Cassie speak about burnout in straightforward, unsanitised language, something in him refuses to let this be just another short–lived initiative. He steps in as a partner on the "Rhythm Reset" pilot, determined to help turn hard truths into real change. What begins as late–night work sessions and tense board meetings slowly turns into something far more personal. In glass–walled conference rooms and quiet kitchens, Cassie and Eli find themselves talking about more than timelines and contracts: past hurts, old scripts about worth, the fear that if they stop moving, everything they have built will disappear. As their connection deepens, they must face uncomfortable questions. How do you love someone who is still renegotiating their own limits. What happens when the person holding the company to account starts slipping back into the habits that once broke her. Around them, the pilot forces Lyra North to confront what it really costs to run people "on passion" alone. Managers push back against no–meeting blocks, executives want Cassie's breakdown turned into a brand story, and a powerful wellbeing partnership dangles tempting opportunities that could either amplify the work or quietly erode its soul. In the middle of it all, Cassie and Eli try to design a life together that neither burns them out nor asks them to walk away from what matters. Hearts Before Midnight is a contemporary office romance about burnout, boundaries, and the slow, brave work of choosing a different story. It is for every reader who has ever checked email at midnight, for anyone who has stood outside a bathroom door and wondered how close they are to breaking, and for anyone who believes that love should help you live more honestly, not just work harder.