Steven

Dallas Billionaires #1

by Kirsten Osbourne

Book One in the Dallas Billionaires Trilogy. When the younger sister of a woman he used to date shows up at his house with a child she claims is his, he convinces they’d be better off living with him than simply taking child support from him. He finds himself wildly attracted to the new “nanny” and sets out to win her heart.

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Adult, Billionaires, Erotica, Short Stories

Nook

First published April 14, 2012

Reviews

[Brooke]

This is a short story (about 80 pages). As such, it should've sucked me in pretty much from the get-go. This story didn't do that. The story was just disjointed and didn't make a lot sense. I didn't have a connection at all with either main character. The plot, itself, had some potential but the story really needed to be longer in order to make it work.

Bailey's sister, Angela, used to date Steven. She got pregnant but didn't tell him about the baby. Then she was killed in a car wreck when the baby was a few months old. Bailey is raising the baby, Faith, but she runs through her savings in no time and goes to Steven to help her financially. Of course, he's a billionaire entrepreneur and she just shows up on his doorstep.

I was expecting this story to be fast-paced since it's a short story, but it was kind of just ridiculous... She shows up on his doorstep saying the baby is his. He immediately denies it's possible, but insists she move in with him in order to be the nanny since he can't take care of a baby on his own. After a couple days, he decides he just have to have Bailey. He arranges for them to go on a vacation to a private island in the South Pacific. In less than 48 hours he's able to procure a passport for her and they take off for the island. I quit reading shortly after they arrived at the island. It was just kind of all over the place. Steven is a controlling kind of guy, as all billionaires seem to be, but he loves how Bailey tests his patience. Mind you, he's only known her less than a week and her sister was a gold digger and he's not even sure the baby is his and he doesn't know Bailey but he's not irritated by her arguing with him constantly. No sense. Then you have Bailey who is a goody-two-shoes. She was engaged but doesn't believe in premarital sex, so she's still a virgin. She was engaged to a man she'd known her entire life and didn't ever have the urge to have sex with him. She's known Steven less than a week and her sister never said anything nice about him and she doesn't like his high-handed attitude and he's the father of her niece but she's contemplating throwing her morals out the window and having sex with him. No sense.

I just didn't have a connection AT ALL to the story or the characters. Maybe if the story was longer and there was more time spent on them getting to know each other, I could've gotten into the story. That, however, didn't happen.

[Aղցela W.]

This book was a little hard for me to rate. When the younger sister of a woman he used to date shows up at his house with a child she claims is his, he convinces her they’d be better off living with him than simply taking child support from him. He finds himself wildly attracted to the new “nanny” and sets out to win her heart. Bailey became the primary caregiver of her niece Faith when her sister Angela died who used to date Steven he knows that the baby isn't his. To me some of the things in this book was unbelievable he agreed to care for the baby and pays Bailey to take care of her. The sex scenes of this book was ok I was looking for more. This was a short quick read and this was my first time reading this author. For a first book this one was ok.

[Jennifer]

Amother fast paced romance. Sweet and if this really happend in real life it would be amazing type of story. For its length and price damn good.

[djdavis~*Sivad*]

3.5 stars
A cute romantic love story, albeit a little cheesy at times and unrealistic, but I'm trying to go for more of those HEA fairy tails and this one fits the description perfectly.

[Breelynne]

Sweet?? Yes.
Predictable?? Very.
Short?? Well, when it's listed as 'kindle edition: 81 pages', for me, that's a no-brainer.

A few things that caused pause for me:

#1: Aunt Bailey shows up on Steven's doorstep with Baby Faith. She has never heard anything but bad about this man from her dead sister, yet for the well being of the baby she moves in that night.
***(Okay sure, for the baby's sake i guess.)

#2: He adamantly denies Baby Faith is his, yet invites a girl whom he's never met, to stay with him, indefinately???
***(Hmmmmmm)

#3: Aunt Bailey is young & pretty, was engaged to a man she's known for years, was saving herself for marriage, but within a week gives herself to Steven.
***(Remember now, she's a goody two-shoes ((BTW-her daddy was a preacher)), her sister never had one good thing to say about him, & Neil is basically a stranger. This one was too two-demensional for me. Too much fairy tale.)

#4: Let's see, would i ever possibly sleep with my sister's ex??
***Uhhh, NO!!! Ick.

#5: I understand the author wanted to lead into the next book by throwing out some names & introducing everyone to each other as they're meeting up on the island, but really, one guy brings his secretary, (gee I wonder where that's headed?) And the other brings his, WAIT...WHAT??? RIDING INSTRUCTOR???!!! LMFAO.
***(Because as a riding instructor you don't have students with scheduled lessons & you have all the time in the world to be spirited off to a private island by private jet, for a vacation...Yep...Sounds about right.)

This is definately a BILLIONAIRE-FAIRY TALE-SHORT STORY. But i liked it well enough.

[Michelle Marie]

lovedddd it!!!!! Its a short read but its worth it. Loved Steven!!!!!

[Cindy]

Very short but even Kirsten's short books are good reads.

[CharleeMoo]

Cute book, a little rushed even for a short story, but good nonetheless.

[Cynthia]

So Enjoyed

Kirsten writes such wonderful love stories. And this brings a young woman and her niece to someone who can help them. Now with her sister gone Bailey was taking care of Faith some until the little girl got sick and they got evicted. Steven knew Faith's mom but never slept with her but he couldn't tell Bailey that, they needed his help.

[Kathy B]

Love lust ...

This is a good love story. A clean romance of bad boy meets good girl. I really enjoyed this story especially at the beach!

[Sam Spencer]

Interesting

I will admit. I didn't see that coming.
It occurs to me that Steven took a very dangerous risk in the beginning of this story
But all's well that ends well

[Laura]

Awesome story. I really enjoyed it.

[Jacqueline Driggers]

This is a good book, an enjoyable read.

[SweetSweeede]

I promised myself many months ago to never again pick up a book with the word 'billionaire' anywhere in the title. In a moment of insanity, I broke that promise. I know billionaires and 'commoners' are a popular romance trope, and if that's what floats your boat, by all means, go for it. Books of this kind require you to suspend disbelief, after all.

Apparently, the term 'suspension of disbelief' was coined some time in the 1800s by a poet and philosopher. He suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative. (Source: Wikipedia)

So is there enough "human interest and semblance of truth" in this story? Well, let's see.

Bailey Borders was broke and desperate, toting her dead sister's baby, when she knocked on billionaire Steven Tilton's door to introduce him to his daughter. Okay, that's certainly a predicament, and I'd call it human interest.

Billionaire-Steven decides to have Bailey and the baby stay with him and pay for the little girl until she turns 18, even though, as we later find out, there was absolutely no way she was his. What a philanthropist.

Then, of course, it's the middle of the night and Bailey has been up feeding the baby when she runs into Steven in the hallway, and he kisses her. And, of course, she's powerless to resist. After he pulls away, he scolds her for not wearing enough clothes in the middle of the night and she apologizes. He goes on to threaten her that if she walks around dressed like that, he'll take her up on what she's offering. Nice, a real prince right there...

Billionaire-Steven learns that Bailey was supposed to marry someone and spend the honeymoon out on some local beach. Of course, he can't have her first trip to the beach be anywhere but Bora-Bora, so he plans his company's board meeting to take place there. (I sure hope their Articles of Association allow for board meetings to be held abroad, or their decisions may be deemed void)

Of course, when a billionaire takes you on a private jet and whisks you off to a private island, you're expected to put out, even though you were raised with different morals and had managed to stay a virgin for however many years. Already in the car, he's getting handsy, putting his hand on the nanny's thigh. She keeps pushing his hand off but of course it stays right where it is. For me, this is a very uncomfortable situation to be in - trying to be polite to your boss and not offending him while warding off unwanted advances. Never mind that Bailey might not actually hate the idea of a relationship, her actions should be telling him to back off and show her some respect.

Anyway, they get to the island, get to bed, Bailey meets the other girls in Steven's business parterns' lives and hits it off with them. It's no surprise this is part of a trilogy.

After the trip, Bailey cuts the romantic relationship off and Steven says 'fine' and they co-exist for awhile. Bailey then finds out she's pregnant - big surprise, since they obviously didn't care about protection - and decides to wait for him in his home office. She happens across the paternity test showing he's not her sister's baby's father. Now she's very upset, can't bear to tell him she's pregnant, and runs to one of her new friends' houses to try to start over.

Short story short, he mans up, asks her to marry him and to adopt the baby, she says yes, tells him she's pregnant and they live happpily and wealthily ever after. The end.

So, is there "human interest and semblance of truth" in here? I guess. Meaning you might be able to suspend your disbelief and read this story - providing you don't care too much about the book being short but the story being long, the switching POVs that at times gets confusing, the insta-lust and insta-love, and the telling outweighing the showing.


So if billionaires are your type, go for it. Me, I'm gonna go back to avoiding them.

[Nicole]

Sweet enough but very predictable. As a short story, there is not a lot of scope for much to happen, and it certainly didn’t here. I can live with fact that the big conflict was that she ran away and that it was resolved when they got back together. That bit, at least, was realistic. The fact that she jumped so easily into bed with her sister’s ex-boyfriend after saving herself for marriage for so long, not so much.

Both main characters were only shallowly depicted — more was needed in the characterisation. Steven’s name titles the book and yet all we know about him is that he is kind, generous, has three best mates with whom he started a business, is a self-made billionaire and buries himself in his work rather than deal with emotion. Even then, apart from the billionaire bit and the three best friends, the rest is only hinted at. What I did like with the story was that it was not all about money and living the high life. Being a billionaire seemed to allow him to take a holiday and buy a ring without too much effort but, otherwise, did not have much import on the story.

The text is a little clunky. It frustrates me when I come across this, that I cannot always work out why. There were a couple of minor editing errors, but these didn’t effect ease of reading. Osbourne showed, rather than told and, I suspect, used too many adjectives and adverbs to flow nicely. Possibly, the main reason it didn’t quite work may have been the tense. It was not incorrect but may have needed more variety in the types of past tense used.

Al in all, it was okay, but not brilliant. I would be happy to read the other two books in the series, but will not be chasing them up.

[Avid Reader]

Meh.


This was a novella, so the insta-love was kind of necessary. No matter how awkward.


The cheesiness was a bonus.


And of course, the three men in this book will all be set up with the three women in the book. GO TEAM!


So yeah, this was a sweet romance, full of kittens and rainbows. It was cheesy and light. I gave it two stars, but if you are looking for something quick and easy, this is a fine choice. Grab a bottle of Rosé and go for it.

Purchase link - http://amzn.to/1B17yIt

For the full review visit:

[B. D. Mann]

This was my first experience reading a Kirsten Osbourne offering. I elected to begin the experience by reading the three volume series Dallas Billionaires. This first story was about Steven. Admittedly, due to the length of the work it should accurately be classified as a novella rather than a novel. Consequently, the challenge to the author is great if the characters and story line are to be well developed, so my expectations were a little lower than for a full blown novel. No author likes a negative review, but I believe a dishonest review benefits no one. I found the writing to be sophomoric, the characters shallow and unappealing, the story totally unbelievable, and the author’s preparatory research greatly lacking. No one, not even a real billionaire can get a passport issued within three days short of being hand carried through the State Department bureaucracy. Air regulations world-wide require all passengers to be seated with seat belts buckled for all take-offs and landings, so there is no way Steven’s first indications of arrival at Bora Bora could have been the wheels touching down on the runway. There is no way three men could each become billionaires using a business plan simply to develop software to predict sport teams winners. I doubt even one person could become a millionaire using that plan. I have hardly scratched the surface of this offering’s deficiencies, but I will leave it at that. I terminated reading about two thirds of the way through this agonizing offering.

[Tonileg]

Contemporary Texas secret baby to a billionaire plot. First book in the Dallas Billionaires Trilogy, Steven.
Bailey has had it tough lately, her sister suddenly died and left her with a newborn girl, Faith which in turn made her lose her job then her apartment because of having to take off to take care of the little baby. So with whatever she can fit into her old car, she drives across Texas to Steven's house on Superbowl Sunday. Steven sees right away that the child is probably not his, but that Bailey and Faith need a help and a place to stay, so he invites them to live there and he would pay Bailey to be the Nanny to her niece. Right away there is some attraction between Steven and Bailey, but she isn't having any of that because she is focused on her niece's care. Steven has other ideas so he fires up his private jet and takes the girls to a private beach so he can woo Bailey.
I'm not seeing anything profound like love, there is mostly just lust in this story. Not a great story as it was too predictable but a cute fast read if you're stuck in the subway...
81 pages and kindle freebie
2 stars

[N. Kuhn]

I can't decide whether this book was horrible or if it just needed more work. They are called Dallas Billionaires, but where's the talk of Dallas? They aren't even in Dallas? The story was short and so fast paced that it seemed rushed. There were openings for a lot more. Descriptions could have been better, and the sex scenes that were supposed to be hot? I've read more in a young adult book than this one. I won't even force myself to read the other two in the series. What story line there is, is completely predictable.

[Jess O. (From Jess to You)]

"3 out of 5 stars, this is a sweet novella about two people being brought together by a baby and learning more about themselves then they ever expected. As a couple, Steven and Bailey are very charming and playful."

Read more of this review and a teaser here: http://frommetoyouvideophoto.blogspot.com/2013/09/made-grade-dallas-billionaires-trilogy.html

[Christy]

Although this was a free Kindle download and I didn't really have high expectations for this book, I wanted to like it more than I did. Steven came across as an arrogant jerk, until the very end of the book, when he just seemed dense. The heroine seemed two-dimensional, and I never connected with her. It was an ok book, but I won't read the rest of the series and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Becky]

it may be a free read but dont waste your time. it is written as if its audience is 12. the main male character says he had a swasticka on his diaper to indicate how bossy he is...so he is saying he committed genocide? this writer needs a writing class AND a sensitivity class. sorry i wasted the space on my nook for this garbage. i could not even stomach it to finish it.

[Roseanne]

This book isn't terrible but there are times where I feel the author could have expanded the story line slightly. The conflict in the story is so quick to happen and be done with that it wraps the story up very quickly. This book is a very short read and one that you can finish in just a few hours.

[Ginny Lamere]

Great book

This is the start of the series, Stephen and his business partners are spending Super Bowl Sunday watching the game when a young woman does up with his baby, he's sure the baby is not his butt takes the baby in hires the baby's aunt Bailey as his nanny. Through twist and turns and lots of fun they get their happily ever after, I loved it Kirsten Osbourne

[Melissa Maxwell]

I enjoyed the book but felt a little rushed. It was like hi, sex, marriage. I felt there was some connection but I just did not know their back stories well. I really wanted to know why he loved Steven even though I felt that he did love her.

[Funzee Shu]

Hmm....

Too short...
Too simple...
Too flat...
Too predictable...
Too rushes...
Too...so-so...

No emotional attach...
No twist...
NOT impress me at all...

BUT its easy and fun to read...

#Mayanlah buat nambah2in kuota baca, hehehehe....

[Boma]

I had such high hopes for it. my hopes were crushed, like crushed ice. Too simple. too short (though I'm glad it was because it wasn't great). too PREDICTABLE!! that kills a book! I couldn't wait to finish it and I dreaded reading it.

[Megs]

It could have been better, I found it okay..but I feel it needs a lot of work. I found the dialogue and narration bit lame. The characters were of a billionaire businessman and a single mother, yet I felt I am inside the head of a teenager.

[Jacqueline Perez]

I like it

I enjoyed it, I fell in love with the characters immediately, I will definitely read Justin and Cody hoping to still see all the characters relate to each other in the other series.

[Jadine]

The story idea was great, this author could have used more words to make the story flow better. It felt like it jumped in time (once I thought it had been weeks, then I found out only a week's time had passed, yet it didn't quite flow with the story that only a week had passed)