Self-made billionaire Damian Blackwood catches–and seduces!–Hong Kong’s sexiest thief in this first installment of Jackie Ashenden’s Billion $ Bastards trilogy! My parties are legendary–as is my security. So when Thea Smith almost successfully steals a priceless necklace from my penthouse, I can’t help being impressed by her skill. But I didn’t make my billions letting others take whatever … whatever they want and walk away. Instead of calling the police, I’ll unravel the mystery and shatter her tight control–using all the seductive skills I possess.
Vulnerable and strangely innocent, Thea is unlike any thief I’ve ever met. Now that I’ve made her delightfully responsive body mine, I want to show her she deserves better than the life she’s chosen. The more time I spend with her supple limbs wrapped around me, the further she sees past the playboy facade. I know I’m a bastard, but she sees the pain and loneliness in my soul. And I must push her away before she steals my guarded heart…
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‘ve been a fan of Jackie Ashenden’s novels for some time and although I generally complain about insta-love romances, which this first novel in her new series, Billion $ Bastards, has in spades, when done as well as it is in this book, it works for me, and it gets a 5-star rating, since I picked it up, opened it, and read it straight through until morning.
Thea Smith is the heroine in this novel. She’s had a rough life, and was living on the streets until her mentor, Mr. Chen, found her on the streets of Hong Kong, trained her, and taught her his business–re-acquiring (aka, stealing) previously stolen items and returning them to their legitimate owners for a fee. When we first meet Thea she is crashing a party thrown by notorious playboy billionaire, Damian Blackwood. Dressed as a waitress, she manages to avoid detection by the security guards and gain entry to the private and exclusive gathering. She’s there on a mission, to re-acquire the Red Queen, a fabulous ruby necklace, stolen from its rightful owner 20 years earlier, and recently acquired at auction by Damian, a collector of fine and rare gemstone jewelry. She plans to steal it if she can find it, grab it, return it to it’s rightful owner, and get away without detection–a tactic she learned from her mentor, and one she’ been successful at for years.
When Thea first sets eyes on Damian, he’s surrounded by a bevy of beautiful and wealthy women, all doing their utmost to gain his attention, but she’s drawn to both the story he’s telling, his charm, his looks, and the chemistry when they first lay eyes on one another is off the charts. What Thea doesn’t know is that Damian has an eidetic memory, and he knows she isn’t one of the waitstaff he meticulously hired, wondering how she got past his security team.
Since Thea prides herself on being unmemorable, and considers herself so ordinary that no one ever notices her, she is soon in Damian’s supposedly secure office trying to find the safe containing the Red Queen, not realizing that Damian did indeed notice her, knew she didn’t belong there, and wondered who she was, and what she was after. He finds her in what he believed to be his secure office–hiding under his desk. Although he knows she’s up to no good, and has already guessed what she’s after, he’s sidetracked by her and the electricity between them, and in Thea’s virginal mind, what better way to distract him from having her arrested, than to offer him her body and her sexual services. She’s never done this before, but Damian is definitely interested, and she’d rather offer him sex than get arrested.
What follows is typical of Jackie Ashenden novels, two interesting and seemingly mismatched characters who are from completely different backgrounds, but each broken, and/or scarred in some fashion, who find common ground, have steamy sex, learn more about each other, and, in the process, begin to come to terms with the emotional scars they bear, and manage to slowly heal one another. Is it formulaic? Of course it is, but Ms. Ashenden is so masterful at creating these characters you can’t help but root for them to find their HEA ending.
Other than Ms. Ashenden’s ability to make these characters jump off the page and into your heart, were this novel written by any other than a small handful of authors I can name, I’d be listing my standard complaints about insta-love, not enough action, no threat of danger from someone else who wants to steal the rare ruby necklace, and so on, but in Jackie Ashenden’s more than competent hands, I absolutely loved this novel, fell in love with her hero, and wouldn’t change so much as a single word of this impossible to put down, steamy, heartfelt, and emotionally satisfying novel. I highly recommend it, and can hardly wait for the next novel in this series.