LynneC’s review of Million Dollar Christmas Proposal by Lucy Monroe
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 1 Nov 13
One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the boss/secretary romance. Or rather, the boss/employee romance, since Presents has come to terms with there not being any secretaries anymore. Although there are still PAs. In this book the heroine works in the call center of the hero’s multi-zillion company. And so it goes. There are children, one baby, and one four-year-old who need a mother, so the hero, who goes by the name of Enzu, decides to buy them one. Strike one for sanity. Except, there are rumors that some wealthy men do just that, but for far crazier reasons than providing a mother for their feckless dead brother’s babies.
The heroine needs the money for her gay brother. Yes, the gay bit matters, because it was his coming out at the age of twelve that got him thrown out of their wealthy parents’ nest, and when she took his side, Audrey was out too.
When she overhears Enzu’s plans to buy a wife, she knows she is that wife. She needs the money. And she’s loved him from afar for four years. Audrey is fairly typical for a Presents heroine. She’s not “special,” i.e., she’s not made up, blatant, skinny or any of the things that are supposed to make for a “bitch.” She’s averagely intelligent, with a degree. Not a genius. And she’s an ordinary girl in an ordinary job. Also, for a Presents bonus, she’s a virgin at 27.
So she persuades the grumpy Enzu, who, also in the Presents mold, has no time for a private life. But Enzu isn’t a manwhore. I can see the logic of manwhores, because very wealthy men very often don’t have the time for a private life, but manic energy leads to manic sex drives. It’s the double standard that sometimes annoys me. However, that’s not the case in this Presents.
The two children are moppets. Adorable, right to the tooth-clenching level. They have a nanny who insists they call her Percy (not a name for a Scot, since the Percies are border lords, traditionally enemies of the Scots), but we know she’s Scottish because she drops in words like “bairn” and “wee.” Calling them “tykes” tends to make her more Yorkshire, so I wonder about her. Her accent is a weird mixture of cod-Scottish, Yorkshire, and American, so I keep seeing her as a kind of Mrs. Doubtfire, and in my mind’s eye she had saucepan lids over her boobs, as in the movie, so that livened events up a bit.
Enzu and Audrey get on like a house on fire. They snog and he likes the way she dresses, and she tells him she’s virgo intacta. Then comes the seduction scene. They’ve already agreed to Do The Deed before marriage to ensure they’re compatible but mainly because Enzu can’t wait. He takes her virginity with his fingers, so that is sweet. In fact, everything is sweet. Even the batshit crazy pool and grotto and waterfall Enzu has in his basement. Wow. I wonder how he did it without using endangered species. Oh yes, and he has rescued ocicats in his jungle, too. Just because. They appear once and then they’re gone. Ocicats.
As I write this, the non-ocicat resting his paws none-too-gently on my stomach is doing his “I purr in your FACE,” which reminds me that there’s chicken in the refrigerator. I will make him wait. For you, readers, I make this sacrifice.
The ocicats notwithstanding, Enzu later takes Audrey to bed. In a bedroom, not a jungle grotto. Seriously, that was something else. Even when I wrote mermen, they had a basement luxury pool, but even they would have boggled at a grotto. Enzu likes to take control in bed, and some of the best parts of the book are where he teaches Audrey the freedom of letting go sexually. And Monroe’s insight into Enzu getting turned on by controlling his own reactions is nice, too. Reflects one or two of the Doms I’ve met. The underlying chocolate addiction of the hero is also nice.
But there’s no black moment. Or rather, blink and you’ll miss it. The book is nearly conflict-free. Audrey’s beef with her parents is never brought center stage and Enzu is brought to realize there is more than work to life fairly easily.
Me, I don’t mind very much for a Christmas read. The children I could have done without. This moppet thing has to stop. Can we have some real children in Presents books?
Off to placate the non-ocicat who’s still aggressively purring.
Grade: C
Summary:
Tycoon Vincenzo Tomasi needs a new nanny for his niece and nephew by Christmas. And the million-dollar salary on offer will be more tempting than anything in Santa’s sack! Audrey Miller already works for Enzo and loves children, and stepping into his family would dramatically help her own.
What Audrey doesn’t know is that Enzo expects the right candidate to become his wife—and high on the requirements list is sexual compatibility. While she’s lusted after her enigmatic boss for years, will innocent Audrey risk everything to explore her irresistible attraction in the most unlikely interview process ever?
Read an excerpt.
