The Bastard Billionaire by Jessica Lemmon

The Bastard Billionaire (Billionaire Bad Boys, #3)

by Jessica Lemmon

Eli Crane is back from the war, missing a leg and ready to finally be left ALONE. So why is his family tampering in his life, sending him housekeepers to baby him? A man has a right to his solitude--especially after surviving the ravages of war. But when they stoop so low as to send beautiful Isabella Sawyer, they've gone too far. As if he'd be tempted to keep her around just because she has the body of a real life Jessica Rabbit...

Isa is NOT going to let some cranky billionaire sully her housekeeping agency's good name by firing every single one of her girls. Nope, she'll take on this handful herself and teach him a thing or two. But Isa isn't blind and before too long, she can't deny the strong attraction she feels for this gorgeous and infuriating man.

But Isa has a secret, one that Eli almost unearths when he discovers her with a handsome stranger. Can their attraction overcome her mysterious past and perhaps even turn to love?

Reviewed by Rowena on

4 of 5 stars

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The Bastard Billionaire follows the last of the Crane brothers on that journey to his happy ending. Eli Crane served in the Marine corps until an explosion sidelined him and killed his friends. He’s living with a shit load of survivor’s guilt and the guilt is turning him into a surly, growly man who doesn’t want to have anything to do with the family business or any of the administrative assistants that his brothers keep sending his way.

The thing about family is…they’re not going anywhere and neither is the company supplying all of the administrative assistants that Eli keeps scaring away. You see, Isabella Sawyer has a business that she’s trying to get on the map and she’s not going to let Eli Crane scare away her biggest client, his family’s hotel empire. So if she’s got to do the job herself, that’s what she’ll do and Eli Crane will not scare her away. She’s just as stubborn and determined as he is and he’s going to find that out for himself, first hand.

The chemistry between Eli and Isa was pretty intense right from the very beginning. Eli’s confusion at not being able to scare Isa away along with the niggling doubts in the back of his mind about not even wanting to send her away was fun to watch. He fought that attraction at every turn but fate has a way of shoving you on your ass to make you sit up and take notice. So yeah, I enjoyed this story a lot.

Isa was a strong heroine who worked hard and loved harder. She wasn’t prepared for Eli Crane. She didn’t want to like him because he was such a big thorn in her business side but there was more to Eli than meets the eye and he was too hot for him to think so low of himself. She wasn’t looking for him but once she found him, she wasn’t sorry. She didn’t back away from her feelings, and I loved that so much. She owned her feelings right from the jump and even when she knew that Eli wasn’t where she was emotionally, she didn’t back away from how she felt for him. My heart hurt and then rejoiced for her because she was pretty awesome.

Together, they were fantastic. I adored seeing Eli’s walls crumble to the ground where Isa was concerned and I really enjoyed getting to know Isa throughout the entire book. This was a fun book with great guest appearances from Eli’s family. They were a fun bunch in the other books and it was great to see more of the same from them in this one. I definitely recommend.

Grade: 4 out of 5

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 31 January, 2017: Finished reading
  • 31 January, 2017: Reviewed