He's standing thirty feet away and already pulling all the oxygen from the room. Sell-your-soul-for-one-night devastating. Silver at the temples. Steel in his eyes. A jaw with a scar I want to trace with my tongue. My thighs clench before I even know his name.
Rhys Thornton watches me like he's already decided how this ends. Like I'm the only person in the room worth his attention.
I rescue dogs. I clean up my father's messes. I fix broken things. I didn't expect him to be one of them.
He offers a fake engagement. I tell myself it's business. Then he touches me like I'm the first real thing he's wanted in years. He says my name like he's tasting it. Looks at me like I'm ruining twenty years of planning.
I stop pretending this is business. I stop pretending I don't want him.
But he knows too much. Wants me too fast. And something behind those steel eyes tells me this was never supposed to be real.
For 20 yrs Rhys had been finding evidence to prove Edward Sinclair & his pharmaceutical branch are responsible for his late wife & daughter’s death. Just like a chess game, every step is calculated & the time has arrived to destroy Sinclair’s company. Plans to meet Jade Sinclair & weasel his way into her life, getting more proof within that company is the first stage. When he meets her in person, he finds her characteristics are honorable, her beliefs are strong & very similar to his late wife. Somewhere down this path, Jade falls in love with this man who’s playing the perfect gentleman, not realizing her world will be crashing down around her within months.
Rhys didn’t expect to fall in love with her either & he tries to figure out if he can destroy her dad but leaving Jade & her brother out of the fall-out. This plan, if it goes forward to the end, will crush Jade’s feelings for him once she discovers he’s been lying to her since day one. The ultimate betrayal is heart-wrenching, sad & sends them both into a depression. Was it really love between them during their time together or just one-sided? Can Rhys be trusted & forgiven for what he’s done to her? He deserves what she dishes out to him. And what about a HEA in this twisted scheme Rhys started?
This novel flows beautifully. Each chapter lays out the feelings & the steps taken to climax into a perfect storm. I absolutely loved this story, reading about the evil vs the good, who will be the winner & who is the loser? Another winning story-line by Stephie Rose. So unique & powerfully written, feeling their emotions. Definitely worth reading this one! I would give it a 10-stars’ review.
I received an ARC of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Jade Sinclair is the co founder of a foundation whose main goal is to undo the mess her father’s company made. Sinclair pharmaceuticals had been dumping toxic waste and contaminated the soil. 25 people died because of this from cancers and birth defects. Rhys Thornton has made it his life goal for the past 20 years to bring down the company and the head, Edward Sinclair. Rhys’ wife and child were killed by Edward and he has the proof. Emma and Lily drove off a cliff even though Emma had driven it many times before. Just days before the tragic “accident”, Emma had a full inspection of the car done and there was nothing wrong with it. The brake lines were shown to have corrosion according to the accident report. Actually they were cut. For 20 years Rhys has calculated and put together every piece of evidence possible to take down Edward. For a year he’d been watching and studying his daughter, Jade. He developed a plan to make her fall in love with him and accept a marriage proposal. Rhys didn’t care if Jade was collateral damage because he just wanted to see Edward suffer the way he had.
Somewhere along the way though, the plan changed because Rhys fell in love with Jade and it stopped being fake. Until his plan was revealed 😬
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! This would have been a 5 star for me but there was just some repetition throughout the book that got a little annoying but I was able to get past it. The story was emotional and healing. I REALLY loved the rescue dog aspect too 🥹 I was getting nervous that there would be no HEA but there was ☺️
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Jade organized a charity event for her foundation , she helps shelters broken animals from the streets. They were in need of donations, her friend Harper tells her that a mysterious Donor just walked in. When she turned to see who it was , he was devastating gorgeous, he was watching at her and waiting for her to go to catch up. Rhys Thornton is the CEO of thorn capital ,One of the most powerful investment firms on the East Coast . Rebecca from the arts council went to her to meet with him, he complimented her for her work but he knew that she was hiding that six months later she has to shut down. He offered the day after to go for dinner with him to discuss funding . The day arrived and they met he offered to help but they have a meeting every month and when she tells him that other donors don’t work like that his answer was because other donors don’t invest millions of money. She was curious why he’s helping her, one thing she didn’t know that he knows her father too well. An amazing book that I enjoyed reading
Holy cow! This book is a lot! I'm not gonna lie, I cried. This is an age gap billionaire romance revenge novel. It hits and it hits hard. Jade goes through some hard stuff specifically with her father, Edward and Rhys. Rhys's revenge plot is 20 years in the making and it's diabolical. It can make him or break him, and everyone around him that matters. Once the truth starts coming out, make sure you have tissues handy.