Indecent Intentions: Billionaire Romance (2-Book Box Set)

Loved these books. Indecent Intentions is the box set which had had been previously published as single titles, The Bet and the Hookup. The books tell the stories of two friends Xavier and Luke through their journeys toward realising their desires for their respective women they finally feel to be the ‘one’. Both of them are players and both have family issues that impact upon their emotional wellbeing and their attitudes towards the outside world. But building a wall never solved anyone’s problem and at the end of the day did more harm than the protection that it is believed to offer.
In The Bet, Xavier and Izzy are the young couple who battle with each other until they realise their love for one another. Both characters are very interesting and they take the reader on a detailed experience towards understanding their feelings. Izzy is a feisty, intelligent, pretty college student who once saved Jacob, Savannah’s son from his kidnapper. Now that Savannah is marrying Tobias Stone, the billionaire hedge fund manager, Izzy is asked to come to Tobias’s private island on Fiji to babysit Jacob during their week long wedding. Xavier is Tobias’s younger brother.
Both couples’ stories start on that island during the wedding. Luke is Xavier’s long time club owner friend who is asked to provide the drinks bar for the 100 or so guests on the island for the week long celebration. He meets Kay, Savannah’s cousin, an investment banker with a body like Marilyn Monroe. What can I say? Luke is a warm bloodied male who decides that hooking up with friend’s relatives or friends was a big ‘no no’ and although he finds the slightly tipsy and provocative Kay hard to resist but he lives up to his principles. On the other hand, Xavier finds the girl in the lime green bikini – enter Izzy – Jacob’s babysitter irresistible but who has no intentions of being another notch on the notorious Xavier’s bedpost. Xavier isn’t used to being rejected and after too many Tequila shots insists on a $10000 bet with Luke that he can get intimately acquainted with Izzy.
Once back in New York, Kay visits Luke’s bar and finds the friendly and amiable bartender totally cold and disinterested. Two or three visits later, Luke takes Kay home to prevent her from being molested by a drunk work colleague. That night is their ground zero and they embark on an ‘acquaintances with benefits’ kind of relationship. Luke doesn’t do romance, not much civility either if you ask me and Kay is snowed under with work as a high powered banker who needs some uncomplicated outlet from the stresses of her daily reality.
Giving any more detail on either of the sections of the box set would give too much away from the story.
The author had managed to endow each character and the enfolding story with such depth and detailed description that the reader feels that they have known each hero and heroine for a long time. She successfully brought each character to life and although not every aspect of our couples’ behaviour was something that I responded positively to, but that is the whole point, to evoke a reaction from the reader. Both books show two different journeys, yet in both it is the men that have to realize that unless they effect a change in their behaviour, they’ll lose the most important persons in their lives. The journey is varied, exciting and original full of emotional stop points like hurt, fear, anger, illness, regret, hope and love. The second part in particular is quite steamy but never filthy. There are also moments of humour but above all both books are about people’s lives. I found the set impossible to put down. Both couples reach their HEA. These books are part of a series and all the characters in the books are intertwined and although one book finishes, we get snippets of further information about our favourite characters in subsequent books. Unlike in Lily’s previous books however, there were a somewhat higher number of editing errors.

The Bet
This story is a very slow build; agonizingly slow at times. It’s very well written, which helped me to stick with it even though there were times I just wanted to be done with it. I’m really torn by my reactions to the characters. Xavier spends most of the first half of the book behaving like playboy jerk. At this point, I completely supported Izzy when she’s barely polite to him. But as they get to know one another and Xavier drops the mask he hides behind with almost everyone else, Izzy’s continuing attitude really started to bother me. She behaves so mean and bitter towards him. Taking out her anger at other people’s actions on him. By the time we get to his actual “sins” against her, she’s so far off the deep end there’s no reeling her back in. I like that Izzy made him work for her attention and made Xavier strive to be a better person. I didn’t like that nearly every character in the book seemed to feel it was their right to treat him as if he had no feelings at all. Like Xavier didn’t deserve any better than to be subject to the most atrocious behavior. I thought he needed to find a better class of friends and family.
The Hookup
I kind of don’t even know what to say about this book. What the previous book lacked in steam this one more than makes up for. This is a pair of seriously messed up characters. Kay feels the need to be in some kind of relationship and she’s prepared to “fix” him if the man in question isn’t up to snuff. Luke has heaps and heaps of unresolved emotional baggage that prevent him from making any kind of meaningful connections. I was still cheering for their happy ending even though I know perfectly well that in the real world, these two are textbook codependent and I’d be encouraging them to stay far away from one another. One of the things I like the best about this story is that Luke gets help in order to get past his issues, but I would have loved to see Kay getting help as well.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through Booksprout.