A week-long fling with a bad-boy billionaire gives one woman the courage to love another person completely–no holds barred . . . Drake Morganthal. Billionaire playboy. He’s ruthless in business and in bed. He’ll sleep with you, rip your heart out, and never commit. He’ll charm you, seduce you, and set your world on fire. He’ll make you feel as if you’re his woman, then claim you’re only … then claim you’re only friends. Friends, as in call once in a while. Not friends with the potential of more. Drake doesn’t do more.
He’s the exact type of man Livvie needs to stay away from, especially with her destructive pattern of dating narcissistic men who refuse to be monogamous. Until fate forces them to meet . . .
Livvie wins a one-week stay at Morganthal Winery, owned by Drake Morganthal. She doubts she’ll see him. And even if she does, there’s no way he’ll give a random raffle winner the time of day. But she’s wrong.
From the moment they lock eyes, their chemistry is so intense, Drake has to have her. He makes his motives very clear. Between his delicious wines and his gorgeous body, which she craves like a drug, Livvie has to decide if she’ll spend the week in his vineyard and his bed, or if she’s strong enough to turn away a man as addictive as Drake Morganthal.
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I was given the opportunity to freely read and review this book. I am always grateful when I’m offered these opportunities, but it also makes it … not difficult exactly, but I feel ungrateful when I give a negative insight or review. However, I feel like I need to be honest in my opinions and thoughts for this story, both for the author’s sake and for the readers. So here goes.
It took me a long time to finish this book, but the only reason was the first half of the story. Reading it I got bored and had to put it away for a while because my mind kept wandering elsewhere. It was not that the writing was bad or anything like that. I just didn’t feel like much was happening. Sure, Livvie found herself in a castle surrounded by beautiful wine yards and met a handsome and powerful man who was not interested in relationships. The idea sounds interesting and all, but the execution was not what it could have been. That one week she stayed at the mansion all we got to read about was her thoughts on past relationships, her old job and what a commitment phobic Drake was. The first half was where we should have seen Livvies and Drake getting to know each other, see how their friendship and relationship developed. Instead all we got to read about is how turned on they were in each other’s presence. There was no “getting to know you” scenes. It was only about the s**ual tension between them and still they could know and figure things out about each other that no one else could? It was just unrealistic and strange. At this part I honestly saw no storyline form, mainly because I could not see the story going anywhere. Luckily, I was very wrong about that.
When I finally got through the first half of the book, the real exciting and dramatic story finally begun. I went quickly from one star to almost four stars in just one chapter. This is where things picked up and I could actually see all that was missing in the first part. There were drama, character development and struggles with independence and forming a relationship. That is what I want in a good story and I was happily suprised that that’s what I finally got after struggling through the first half. I started feeling and relating to the main character and that really put my heart in this book. I could start to see an actual relationship develop between Drake and Livvie that was not just about pleasure. And it was nice to see that they were humane enough to have struggles with how their relationship were turning out (meaning the jealousy, panic over committing, and difference in opinions). It made it feel more realistic, like these characters could exist in real life. If only the story continued to progress in that direction.
I don’t know why, but it seems to be something with the setting that makes the story fall apart a bit. The first half of the story was at the wine yard and the story felt dull. We then moved away from the wine yard and the storyline, character and relationship developments picked up. Then however, we got back to the wine yard and everything I started to like slowly went away. Livvie had annoyed me somewhat through the entire book, but it definitely got worse at the end. She seriously had no backbone. She let men, or other people no mather what gender, walk all over her and talk and decide over her in any manner they saw fit. Sure, she acknowledged that she had that flaw. She even took six weeks to work on it and take control of her life again. She must not have done a very good job however, since she decided to throw herself at Drake again. The egotistical man who ordered her around, hurt her with words because he could, blamed the reason why he couldn’t commit to her (because of her trust issues? Who would trust a guy like that?) and generaly treated her like crap in my opinion. That was something I also found weird. The author tried to paint him as a good and passionate man with his only flaw that he couldn’t commit. That is not what I saw when I read. I only saw that self absorbed man who left Livvie twice and by that broke her heart twice, if not more. And she decided to fight for a guy like that? If the message with this story is that you should take control of your life and fight for independence and respect, then Livvie clearly made the wrong choice when she went back to Drake.
This book, to me, was like a roller coaster where the thoughts and feelings I had while reading went all from A to Z. The first half of the book I felt only reached one star material, then came the second half where I went from bored and annoyed to intriguied and amazed. Then at 3/4 of the book I became annoyed again, then excited and then annoyed. I honestly never read a book where I had so many emotions and opinions coming and going from left to right, high to low, negative to positive. That makes this book unique in itself, I give it that. However, to get a five star book the story have to capture the readers heart and interest from the beginning, keep it, and then higher the bar and interest in the end. This one did not.