Title: Most Eligible Bastard

Author: Annika Martin

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Most Eligible Bastard, an all-new standalone romance from New York Times bestselling author Annika Martin is LIVE!

He’s a powerful billionaire CEO who built the family business into an empire. The money doesn’t matter to him, but the company is his life. And then his eccentric mother wills it all to her tiny dog.

********

I’m Vicky, the dog whisperer. (Not really, but that’s what my elderly neighbor always says.) When she dies, she surprises everybody by leaving a corporation worth billions to her dog, Smuckers. With me as his spokesperson.

Suddenly I go from running my Etsy store to sitting in an elegant Wall Street boardroom with Smuckers in my lap. And my neighbor’s son, Henry Locke, aka New York’s most eligible bachelor, glaring across the table at me.

Rumor has it Henry’s a business genius who’s as talented in the bedroom as he is in the boardroom. Sure, he’s gorgeous. Sex-in-a-seven-thousand dollar suit. But…

He’s arrogant and infuriating.

He refuses to listen to me when I insist I didn’t con his mother.

He thinks he can bully me, buy me off, control me, even seduce me.

Henry may have the women of Manhattan eating out of the palm of his hand, but I'm so over entitled rich guys who think they own the world.

No way will his wicked smile be charming ME out of my panties.

His wicked...devastating...impossible-to-resist smile.

Oh well, who needs panties anyway?

Excerpt:

She glares at me now. “I can’t believe you tried to strip poor Smuckers of his vote. Do you have no decency?”

“When it comes to protecting this company?” I say. “No.”

Her gaze intensifies. “Just no?”

“None at all,” I say. “No decency whatsoever. Nada, if you will.”

Her pretty lips part. It’s shock. Maybe a little bit awe.

I give her an amused smile, adjusting my jacket sleeve over my cuff just so. The suit was tailored by a man who charges three hundred bucks an hour and is worth every penny.

“Uh,” she says. “You think you’re all that? You’re not.”

“Oh, I am all that,” I say. “I very much am. And for the record, I will crush you in the end.”

“Smuckers had this medication once,” she says. “We tried to hide it in his food, and he spit it out. No matter what we did, he’d spit it out.” She puts one finger on the paper with the new amendment and slides it back across the desk. “Smuckers doesn’t like when people try to fool him. That’s his message for you.”

“I have a message for Smuckers.” I put my finger on it and slide it back across to her. “Smuckers needs to know that we have a private investigator on this case. Smuckers might not have very nice food to eat if you ended up in prison.”

Finally she looks scared.

Brett swoops in. “I say we settle this. One-time offer from me personally.” He writes the number—$4,500,000.00. “This offer expires in two minutes.”

My heart pounds. She needs to take offer. We’ve shown how close she can come to losing everything.

She looks at the paper.

She’s all alone caring for that sister of hers. She’s poor—we have her banking information; we know it for a fact. She has every reason in the world to take it. Yet she hesitates.

“This is our last offer,” Brett says. “After this, we’ll take the company from you, and you’ll get nothing.”

She raises her brown eyes to me. It’s me she’s really dealing with. I like that she knows that.

“You know what Smuckers hates even more than being fooled?” she says.

My heart pounds. She almost lost everything to me, and now she’s going to tell me a dog story?

“He hates being threatened,” she says. “And bullied. He really, really hates it.”

“Well he’s going to have to get used to it,” I hear myself saying. “He’s used to bubbles and bows and sunny parks but he’s in the jungle now. There are animals who are faster and stronger and smarter than he is. Animals who will dominate him easily—savagely, even.”

“Then you don’t know Smuckers very well.”

“Oh, I know all about Smuckers, and I’d suggest he practice rolling over. Baring his belly for the superior predator.” I lower my voice. “Begging sweetly for mercy.”

The color heightens in her face. This shouldn’t be fun.

But oh, it is.

I keep going. “Smuckers may think he can request packets and bylaws and get up to speed, but he can’t compete here. He doesn’t have the skills.”

“Smuckers thinks owning fifty-one percent is the best skill to have,” she says.

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My Review:

3.25 stars

***

This was a pretty good book. I liked parts of it a lot, but some parts didn't work as well for me. This is Vicky and Henry's book. Vicky is a pet collar and jewelry designer living in NYC raising her teenage sister. She had a traumatic past that affected her entire life, causing her to run from her hometown and reinvent herself. She is finally comfortable and happy in her life. After a series of funny events, she finds herself as a dog whisperer for an eccentric old woman, Bernadette, and her fluffy dog, Smuckers. But when Bernadette died, it turned out she was a very rich woman and she left the majority of the family billion dollar company to Smuckers, with Vicky acting as his guardian. Henry is her estranged son who runs the family company. He and the rest of the family think Vicky is a con-woman who tricked Bernadette out of her money. Vicky is determined to follow Bernadette's wishes and refuses to be bossed around. So she starts to attend board meetings with Smuckers and learn about the company. Henry and the family do everything they can to fight her and prove she is a liar. But, when that doesn't work, finally they decide that Henry will try to seduce Vicky to get her to give the company back to the family. As Henry pursues Vicky and they spend more time together, they both develop real feelings for each other. Henry gives up trying to change Vicky's mind, starts to want her to stay apart of the company and they fall for each other. But what will happen when Vicky finds out about Henry's original plan to trick her and seduce her? Will she be able to forgive him or will he lose her for good?

The story was actually really cute and funny. I really liked the premise and felt it was really original. I loved the zany characters and the cute dog. I liked both Henry and Vicky, even though they both had their faults. Henry was mean and judgmental to Vicky in the beginning. I did like him once I started to trust his feelings for her were genuine. I liked Vicky a lot in the beginning. I felt really bad for her after everything she had been through and how Henry and his family treated her. But I thought that she acted rashly as the book went on, especially when she runs away. I felt like the beginning of the book was pretty slow. I liked the middle a lot once I warmed up them as a couple. I didn't really like the end. This book has one of my pet peeves (a separation right at the end.) Still, for the most part, when I overlook the ending, this book is a sweet, funny, and at times emotional, easy read.

Overall, I liked this book but I had a few issues with it. However, I do think it's a worthwhile read. I enjoyed the cute story and funny characters. I still really like Annika Martin's books, even though this one is not my favorite. I definitely recommend giving this book a try!

About Annika:

Annika Martin loves fun, dirty stories, hot heroes, and wild, dramatic everything. She enjoys hanging out in Minneapolis coffee shops with her writer husband, and also likes birdwatching at her bird feeder alongside her two stunningly photogenic cats, especially when she should be writing. She’s heavy into running, music, saving the planet, taking long baths, and consuming chocolate suckers. She’s worked a surprisingly large number of waitressing jobs, and has also worked in a plastics factory and the advertising trenches; her garden is total bee-friendly madness and her most unfavorite word is nosh or possibly fob. A NYT bestselling author, she has also written as RITA award-winning author Carolyn Crane.