THE BASTARD BILLIONAIRE
Series: Billionaire Bad Boys #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Jessica Lemmon
Release Date: February 28, 2017
Beauty and the Beastly Billionaire . . .
The Beast
Eli Crane is one tough bastard. After an explosion left him injured and honorably discharged from the Marines, all he wants is to be left alone. Yet his brothers insist he take a greater role in the family business. They’ve hired him ten personal assistants—and Eli sent each one packing as fast as possible. But when beautiful number eleven walks through the door, Eli will do anything to make her stay.
The Beauty
Isabella Sawyer’s employment agency can’t afford to lose Eli Crane’s business. Her plan: to personally take on the role of his PA, and secure her reputation with the wealthy elite in Chicago. But this beauty and her hot billionaire bad boy soon find themselves mixing business with pleasure in the most delicious ways. And passionate, stubborn Isabella won’t rest until she tames this wicked beast . . .
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FAVORITE “BEASTLY” HEROES
#5 ~ Seth, George Clooney’s character from the movie From Dusk Til Dawn. He’s a bank robber who takes a family of three hostage before leading them, unbeknownst to him, to a den of vampires in Mexico. At the end, the body count is high, but Seth emerges as hero in a move that surprises him as much as the audience watching.
#4 ~ Jax Teller from the television series, Sons of Anarchy. The ultimate bad boy anti-hero, am I right? Yet something about his sinister actions is so tempting. Charlie Hunnam’s gorgeous face helps.
#3 ~ Tate Jackson from Kristen Ashley’s novel Sweet Dreams. I’ve never in my life read a romance hero who insulted the heroine quite the way Tate did Lauren. (She overheard him calling her fat! Gasp!) In a brilliant turn of events, Tate completely falls for Lauren during the course of the book, eating all of his early assumptions and falling helplessly in love with her. Watching him step seamlessly into the hero role was incredible.
#2 ~ Negan from the television series, The Walking Dead. I know, I know… he’s not a hero. He’s the worst of the worst, but the way Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the baddest of them all makes a tiny, evil part of me root for him against my better judgment.
#1 ~ Beast, from Walt Disney’s animated cartoon, Beauty and the Beast. Not only is our hero litearlly a beast, but he also has a heart of solid gold. Like another hero I know, Eli Crane, Beast simply needs a strong heroine who will both stand up to him—and stand up for him.
Well.
The kiss had happened. The button incident had happened. There was no taking it back. Regardless of how either of them felt about it, she was going to continue working here. So. She would deal with the here and now.
Since the sun was shining, Eli’s lair was welcome instead of foreboding. No fire cracked in the hearth today. Also unlike his usual, he wasn’t at his desk. He was at the printer.
“This yours?” He offered a sheet of paper.
“Yes.” She couldn’t keep from explaining. “Pressed the Print button by accident.”
“Mi printer es su printer.”
Isa accepted the document and Eli sank his hands into his jeans pockets, his forearms flexing with the movement.
“I wasn’t—”
“I shouldn’t—” they said at the same time.
He pursed his lips and she looked at her shoes. “Go ahead.” She was going to say, I wasn’t offended when you kissed me, but now that she’d had a millisecond to think it through, maybe she should pretend the kiss hadn’t happened. Which was . . . impossible. Standing this close to him, it’s all she could think about.
“I shouldn’t have ruined your shirt,” he said.
“I dared you to.”
“Why?” His eyebrows compressed along with his lips.
“Because you have accepted the role of beast, but I don’t believe that’s who you are.” She let her gaze linger on his face before tracking down his body. “And because I like a challenge.”
“Do you?” He took a wide step toward her.
She matched his move and took one step closer to him. “Yes. I don’t wilt easily.”
He threaded her hair between his fingers, a look of longing and hurt mingling in his eyes. “I was about to lie and say I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
Shivers climbed her spine as she remembered how firm his lips felt against hers. “Maybe . . . you shouldn’t have stopped.”
A former job-hopper, Jessica Lemmon resides in Ohio with her husband and rescue dog. She holds a degree in graphic design currently gathering dust in an impressive frame. When she’s not writing super-sexy heroes, she can be found cooking, drawing, drinking coffee (okay, wine), and eating potato chips. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want.
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