A sexy category romance from Entangled’s Brazen imprint…
He’s not who she expected, but he’s exactly the man she needs…
When Chelsea Wayne drags Santa into a supply closet for a little office party nookie, she assumes the man in the suit is her on-again/off-again coworker boyfriend. Instead, it’s Rafe St. Sebastian, a man known for his hard-driving ways in business as well as the bedroom–and, kill her now, the brand spanking new owner of Las Ventanas–who grants her naughtiest Christmas wishes.
So much for her reputation, not to mention her career.
Rafe needs to close three acquisitions to prove to his father he’s ready to take the helm of St. Sebastian Enterprises. A hot interlude in a supply closet after deal number two seems like the perfect illicit Christmas bonus. Unfortunately, when that “bonus” becomes the key to the final deal, he finds himself back in bed–so to speak–with Chelsea, and after their steamy tryst, he’s not interested in keeping things professional…
I hate to start off negatively in a review, but given how strongly I feel about this one point, I’m putting it here: this book lost 1 star because of how icky I felt at the end of reading this book. Let me clarify a bit: every disagreement these two characters had ended up with the guy basically kissing the girl to shut her up. And when I was younger, I thought that alpha-type behavior was hot (and sometimes I still do when it’s done sparingly and it’s clear that it’s not an expression of male superiority), but as I’ve grown older and understand better what that means about the dynamic of the relationship and how it undermines the woman’s autonomy and validity of her opinions, I can’t really enjoy a story filled with that behavior.
What was an enjoyable with good characters (individually), but not anything extraordinary, this book should have gotten 2 stars, but instead only gets 1.So, what did I like about the book? The plot was interesting (enough, I mean, it is a commercial romance, so there’s no real expectation for true originality here).
Chelsea was a cool character, although at times her “woe is me” attitude got a bit annoying. I did appreciate her setting limits (or, at least trying to—his refusal to listen goes back to the opening of this review). And even though her situation’s worsening sometimes had me rolling my eyes, I knew that if the events were really happening, I’d feel real sympathy for her, so I can’t really complain about her reactions.
Rafe was also okay (forgoing my #1 issue with the book). His aspirations were well-outlined, he seemed like a charming guy (the way he starts and ends the book is nice), and he does seem to genuinely care for Chelsea. Where the problems come in (and I’m sorry, I tried to just keep it at the start, but given he’s the source of the issues, they were bound to come up again here) is his stalkerish tendencies and his habit of steamrolling over any and all of Chelsea’s objections.
All in all, I think it’s an average story with some very deep and problematic messages about relationship dynamics.
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