If you consider the answer to be a spoiler, and you haven’t reached the end of the book, you’ll want to stop reading this post. I’m putting the rest after the ‘read more’ break, just in case.
I suppose the Beachwalker and the Fugitive kind of lend themselves to said assumption; they’re both single and young, their story is told in a florid writing style, and fate/the plot throws them together in a way that would probably lead to romance in most books.
...Which, as it happens, is part of the reason why I decided not to have it play out that way. It would have been far too cliché, and not at all in keeping with the way people of their personalities would act under their circumstances.
They do develop intense feelings for each other, but having them become a couple at the end would, in my opinion, have added nothing to the book, while simultaneously dumping it in the already large-enough pile of “Florence Nightingale syndrome = romance” stories.
There’s also the fact that I dislike the idea of writing a romance novel on principle, but that’s a topic for another post.
I suppose, like many things about My Fugitive, it’s somewhat open to interpretation. Is it still a romance novel if the characters feel deeply for each other, but are neither a couple nor leaning toward becoming one by the end?
I’ll leave it to you to decide.