Summary
Petunia DeVere loves her job. But she never imagined being a personal assistant for a young royal-by-marriage to be as… complicated as it’s been. Her charge is a well-intentioned klutz who seems to be a magnet for trouble. And somehow she always ends up in the crosshairs.
One bit of that trouble comes from the tabloids – rumors that he’s having an affair with Pet. So the palace’s solution is to make it look like Pet is already in a relationship – with the bodyguard.
Pet tried to strike up a friendship with the brooding security professional, but she could never crack through his stoic, by-the-book approach to everything. But now they’ll have to figure out how to pretend to be “more than coworkers.” And Pet’s not sure they can ever be convincing at that.
Review
As soon as I realized this was a fake dating story, I bought it. It’s my favorite trope. And in this case it was even more fun than usual because the only people they were lying to was the public and the tabloids. It was theatre more than subterfuge which scaled back a lot of the relational angst that sometimes shows up in fake dating stories.
The angst gap was then filled by all of the ridiculous – and serious – situations their boss kept creating. I laughed SO much! And not just at the wild scenarios. The writing here is just super clever and so funny! I was impressed with the author’s ability to have me cackling one moment and tearing up the next. I had all the feels in this – and I loved it.
I loved the characters in this. It’s exactly the sort of grumpy/sunshine pairing I like – and that’s not a trope I seek out. But here you get point-of-view pieces from both characters so you know what Matthias is really thinking all along. You get to watch them both fall for the other – and it was so fun and sweet.
I don’t love food-based stories, so I skipped book one in this series, Battle Royal. But I had no issues following this without having read book one. I highly recommend this one – it was a fun read! (Language, sex)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥*
*♥♥♥♥♥ = Outstanding!