BILLIONAIRE by Juliette Jones

 Lila Carmichael is a good girl, a high-achieving academic, punctual to a fault, unfailingly conscientious – and embarrassingly inexperienced. After graduating from Princeton, Lila moves to New York City and begins her job search. Innocent and naïve, she is swept away by an uncharacteristic bloom of total abandon as soon as she meets the tall, dark-eyed CEO of Wolfe Enterprises. Under Alexander’s potent influence, Lila is thoroughly transformed from demure virgin to lusty goddess in just two days. Given her upbringing, it’s only natural that Lila would be attracted to such a pinnacle of stability, but as emotion and lust entwine, she begins to question the motives behind her covetous, hedonistic desires.

Alexander Wolfe needs a new assistant to help him run his publishing empire. One résumé in particular catches his eye and he decides to interview the candidate one-on-one in his private penthouse office. When a green-eyed goddess walks in, Alexander, for the first time in his life, finds himself powerless to resist. The difficulties of his past ensure that his protective instincts are fiercely attuned, and Lila’s vulnerabilities, combined with her nubile body and voracious new appetites, only succeed in ensnaring Alexander past the point of no return.

Set in New York and Paris, Lila and Alexander’s connection is a whirlwind of lust, love, jealousy and obsession. Will they find their happy ever after?

Midway through this book I was determined to only give it a one or two star rating, but before I go into that let me tell you about the characters. 

Lila Carmichael was in her early twenties and came from a horrible family.  Her mother was drunk most of the time; her boyfriends had free access to anything in the house, including Lila.  They lived in a dump and Lila decided at an early age she was going to use her brains and get out of this lifestyle. She worked hard and put herself through Princeton and graduated early.  She was modest in her dress and behavior till her roommate convinced her to have a makeover for this upcoming job interview.  When she walked into the building housing Skyscraper Publishing’s, she was sure she was wasting her time.  No one would hire her fresh out of college for an assistant’s position but at least she could use this as experience for further job interviews.

Alexander Wolfe was a self-made billionaire.  His childhood wasn’t much better, but he had the extra burden of taking care of his little brother Jake while making his way through Princeton as well.  Being the handsome rich man that he was, finding women wasn’t a chore to him, but feeling that connection with them seemed impossible, that is until Lila walked in to his office.  For some reason he sensed her need for protection just as he had seen in his little brother years ago.  There was more than that; he saw the chance at love for the first time in his life. 

Now this is when the story gets strange for me.  Within the first twelve hours after their meeting, she lost her virginity, basically moved in with him, she did get the job but never showed up for work and became his doll to buy things for and have sex any time he wanted.  I swear it was beyond belief to think this virgin went from never having sex to being able to have sex into the double digits within the first few hours. 

He finds out she is a virgin after their first two encounters now that would scream he would freak out right? Nope, he wants her get on birth control and then has more sex with her.  So, the first half of the book was mainly what I just described, his control issues did start to grow to the point when he made his huge mistake and she panicked, that was when the story became a bit more interesting for me. 

One more issue I had with this book was there was a great amount of the characters talking to themselves and not to each other.  In one part Jake asked Lila a questions, we had to read three pages of her going over stuff that we had just covered in her head by the time she came up with an answer.  Even Jake was impatient and had to ask her again.  For most of the book it felt more like there was only one character not at least two and that tended to aid in me becoming bored and wanting to skim till I found a conversation, that wasn’t while they were having sex.

With every book there are good points as well.  The author did give us two people we could find empathy for and connect to on the deepest level regarding their fears and pasts.  The people in this story were caring and respectful and she let us see Alex was struggling with is need to protect her, not control her.  I did love the part of the story where they both dealt with their past that fuels their actions in the current day, but I am afraid that came too late for me.  Because she did pull out an intense plot in the end, I upped my rating to a 3 and can say I would be willing to read more of her books.  I would just hope the characters could converse more with each other and that the sex in the book would be seen as a building point to the story and not something to just fill the pages.