ARC Review: The Irredeemable Billionaire by Lexxie Couper (The Muse Series)

Title: The Irredeemable Billionaire

          (The Muse Series)

Author: Lexxie Couper

Release Date: November 13, 2017 (ARC)

Publisher: Entangled

Category: Contemporary Romance

Type: Digital/Paperback

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Lexxie Couper Website

Blurb:

The rules have never applied to film director Sebastian Hart. He’s always done what he wants, when he wants. But after one too many wild nights, Sebastian finds himself performing community service in the unlikely role of big brother to a ten-year-old boy in need of a father figure. It seems like fate is playing with him when the boy’s mother turns out to be the girl he grew up next door to, the one person he’s never been able to win over with his smile or charm.

After the death of her husband, Grace Wilder has her hands full working as a paramedic and being both mother and father to their son. The last thing she needs is for the bane of her teenage existence to show up, or for her son to contract a case of hero worship. Even worse is the fact that the boy who once made her life miserable has turned into a man who has the power to destroy her with his devastating smile and sexy eyes.

Each book in the The Muse series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed out of order.

The Stubborn Billionaire
The Mistaken Billionaire
The Irredeemable Billionaire

By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.

If you are under the age of 18, please exit this site.

Favorite Line(s):

But first, Sebastian. A slow death. Painful. Somehow involving grasshoppers. If she remembered correctly, he had a grasshopper phobia. Was there a term for that? After she finished with him and disposed of his irritatingly hot, lifeless body, she would google it.   ~  Grace

Dialogue Highlight:

He never drank Earl Grey. Ever. He liked tea. Considered himself somewhat a connoisseur but he never drank Earl Grey. And yet now he was pouring himself a mug.

“Okay, so that was an effort.” Grace’s weary sigh played with his senses, and he turned to find her slumped in the armchair, head back, hands covering her face. Once again, she looked tired. But unlike the first time he saw her, not beaten down. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Lips still slightly colored with the remnants of gloss.

Crossing to the living room, tea mugs in hand, he lowered himself onto the sofa. “It’s not every day a boy gets to battle a member of the paparazzi in defense of his mother.”

“That bastard called me plain,” she grumbled without removing her hands from her face. “I feel like I want to go back and find him and beat him up with his own camera.”

“We can do that. I’ll get one of my PAs to come stay here with Cody. Anya is great with kids.”

She dropped her hands and frowned at him. “I have no idea if you’re serious or not.”

He chuckled and handed her one of the mugs. “Depends. Do you want me to be?”

Letting out a wry snort, she took the tea. “There’s a part of me that does. What a prick. Do you deal with that kind of thing often? I thought only movie stars and singers copped that kind of attention.”

“Olsen is a special kind of prick. He learned his trade at the notorious Carl Holston School for Paparazzo Bastards.”

“Who?”

“Carl Holston was one of the world’s most notorious paparazzo. Started his career here in Australia hounding Nick Blackthorne. He was killed a few months ago trying to get a photo of James Dyson’s fiancée. Ran out on the road and got hit by a speeding garbage truck. Quite fitting, to be honest. Olsen is trying to claim Holston’s crown. So he goes after any celebrity he thinks worth his time. I fall into that category when I’m in Australia. And when no one else more famous than me is in town. Now Chris Huntley is here, I suspect tonight will be the last time we’re harassed by him.”

We. When had they become a we?

Grace shook her head and took a sip of her tea. “Chris Huntley, James Dyson. I still can’t believe I’m having a conversation with someone who just casually namedrops such famous people. Who would have thought the bane of my existence would grow up to have such famous friends?”

Sebastian picked up his own tea and grinned. “I did.”

She rolled her eyes with a soft laugh. “Y’know what? I think I did, too.”

She took another sip, closing her eyes this time.

Hell, she was beautiful. Nothing about her would tick a casting agent or modeling agent’s boxes, but she was just…beautiful. Real-life beautiful. Sitting there, eyes closed, clearly enjoying the tea he’d made her, hair once again returning to its wild, curly nature…It was just Grace, there in the chair, tired but happy.

Grace. Who liked her tea hot with one teaspoon of sugar and who’d cried and cried when she’d learned her father had a horrible disease.

“Do you remember the day you found out your dad had MS?”

She opened her eyes at his low question, her eyebrows pulling into a frown. “Why?”

“I wanted…I wanted to say sorry for calling your hair orange. I started to come back over to your place to tell you that, after Mum dragged me and Harry out. But she caught me. Distracted me. Took me and Harry to the shops and bought us both whatever we asked for. I never got around to apologizing after that.”

She studied him, her expression unreadable. “What did you ask for?”

“A video camera. I came home and filmed a stop-motion movie about a praying mantis fighting with a cockroach over a crumb. My first movie ever.”

“So it’s fair to say I am responsible for giving the world the phenomenon that is Sebastian Hart, multi-awardwinning director?” A light danced in her eyes. Mischief? Happiness? Or sarcasm?

He raised his mug to his lips. “It’s fair to say.”

Excerpt:

“I thought I told you to leave.” Grace walked back into the room, frown firmly in place as she rounded the sofa.

“So you like this Justin guy?”

She froze just as she was about to pick up the two mugs Justin had left. “Sure. He’s a nice guy. Why?”

“I’m not a fan.”

She burst out laughing. Threw back her head and really laughed. Looked at him, hand over her mouth, eyes sparkling, and started chuckling again.

“What?”

Rolling her eyes, she collected the mugs and carried them into the kitchen. “Hart, what you think about the people in my life means diddlysquat to me.”

“What about what Cody thinks?” He shoved himself from the armchair and strode into the kitchen. She flicked a look at him as she poured hot chocolate—probably warm chocolate now—down the sink. “Cody calls him Mr. Fitzsimmons. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“It tells me Cody is respectful of his elders. Not something I recall you knowing much about when you were his age. Did you ever once call my dad anything but Reggie?”

“His name was Reg. What else was I meant to call him?”

She let out a sharp bark of a laugh; her Seb-Hart-is-amoron laugh. He remembered it well. “Oh, I don’t know. How ’bout Reg? Or better yet, Mr. Ford?”

Returning to the living room, she dropped into an armchair and tugged her ponytail free. “Forget it. I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. Thank you for staying with Cody today. I’ll contact Big Brother tomorrow morning and tell them you can go to another little boy.”

“Why?”

She frowned at him. “Surely you don’t want to have to deal with me every time you come around to do your community service?”

Ouch. So, she knew why he was in the program.

“I don’t want to deal with you,” he said. “You’re horrible.” He smiled to soften the jibe and shrugged. “But Cody is awesome. A weird little awesome kid. We had fun today, talking movies and games. To be honest, I was surprised how much I enjoyed hanging out with him, even if he did kick my arse in Mario Kart. I’m happy to spend time with him.”

They’d also talked a lot about Cody’s dad, about how incredible he’d been. A firefighter. Heroic and brave. Cody missed him, still idolized him. Sebastian almost envied the boy his innocent worship of his father. Sebastian sure as shit never felt like that for his own father. He’d felt an unusual guilt for turning the conversation to Grace. Cody clearly loved his mother more than his ten-year-old brain could articulate, and he was fiercely protective of her. When Sebastian had asked the boyfriend question, Cody spluttered out a no, his young face growing red behind his glasses. He’d shaken his head so much it was a wonder said glasses didn’t fling off. He hadn’t mentioned generically good-looking Justin at all, not even as “Mum’s friend” or “our neighbor,” so if the next-door neighbor did have a thing for Grace—and with the challenge in Justin’s eyes, Sebastian suspected that was the case—Cody knew nothing about it.

“So I can’t get rid of you?” she asked.

“No. I’m not going anywhere.” And not just because Judge Myers would be displeased. As much as he didn’t want to go to jail, he wanted to…What? See what life had done to Tinsel Teeth?

He swiped at his mouth with his hand. No. He didn’t like that reaction. True, he’d found himself wondering about her on and off over the years, about what she was doing, but she wasn’t Tinsel Teeth Ford. Not anymore.

“Did you hate me?” Now why the hell had he asked that? “When we were kids? Teenagers?”

She studied him like he was a specimen in a petri dish. Science had been her forte subject at school. In fact, if he remembered correctly, she’d won some kind of science award when she was sixteen.

“Yes.” She let out a sigh, her expression impossible to decipher. “I did.”

“I wasn’t your biggest fan, either.”

She threw back her head and laughed again, and before he knew it, he was laughing as well. Okay, so a late-night talk show didn’t like his latest movie. Big deal. So he was on community service. So what? Right at that second, laughing with his old nemesis felt good.

“Drink your tea,” he said, sliding her cup closer to her across the coffee table.

She picked it up and blew a gentle stream of air on its surface. “What did you end up feeding Cody today?”

“We made Vegemite sandwiches for lunch and got pizza delivered for dinner.”

“Let me guess. Barbeque Meatlovers from Dominos.”

Sebastian’s favorite pizza when he was a kid. A grin pulled at his lips. She remembered.

“I thought you’d like some veggies in his meal”—he settled back into the sofa—“so I ordered a roast chicken, sweet potato, and baby spinach calzone from a gourmet pizza joint in Point Piper.”

She blinked. “Point Piper? On the harbor?”

He nodded.

“Almost an hour and a half’s drive away. Chock full of billionaires and millionaires? That Point Piper?”

“Yeah.”

“And they delivered. To here?”

He nodded again.

She shook her head. “I don’t know whether to be impressed by the fact you thought of Cody’s nutritional needs, or gobsmacked by the fact a pizza place in Point Piper delivered a calzone all the way out here.”

“I flew the cook to LA once to make me the roast chicken calzone. You’ll love it. I remember how much you liked sweet potatoes. I made sure we left you some. It’s in the fridge. Bet you Justin Whatshisface never brought you sweet potato calzone from Point…”

He stopped. “What did I say?”

Review:

Grace Ford Wilder is a single mother, widow, and paramedic. She’s been living the glamorous life of a single mother and is exhausted trying to keep up with it all. When her best friend thinks to help her out by getting her son a big brother, she’s floored when he shows up on her door step. Anyone but Hart. He made her life miserable when they were kids. Not that she didn’t give it right back to him, but he’s a self-absorbed pig and a billionaire film director. There’s no way he could have improved. She doesn’t have time for his celebrity ways. She has a life and the hero worship her son has for him only spells disaster for her son … and her. Sebastian has similar habits of the past, but he isn’t the same person and now her heart is on the line, leaving her nowhere after he tires of her and moves on. And he will move on because he doesn’t want to settle down and Grace isn’t the red-carpet premiere, rub shoulders with celebrities type of person. She doesn’t belong in that world; his world.

Sebastian Hart can’t believe his eyes. Ford is standing in front of him and she’s not that dorky young teen anymore. He used to tease her mercilessly and she used to retaliate with a kick to the shins after delivering a scathing retort. He’s missed the saucy little brat more than he realized, but she isn’t the same. She looks exhausted, haunted, almost beaten … and it’s tearing him up. Suddenly his court order to be a big brother becomes something altogether different. But Ford won’t be easy to bring around. She knows the old him and proving to her that he’s changed is going to be the hardest thing he’s ever done. And maybe, just maybe, all that teasing and ill-treatment in the past was him trying to hide from something he should have known all along; someone who was in front of him the whole time. He’s just got to keep from screwing things up. Easy, right?

I really enjoyed this book. This story takes place in Australia and so there is a lot of Australian swang used. I laughed at a lot of it because it reminded me of my friends in Roxburgh Park. It was a nice touch for me. I also liked that Sebastian wasn’t the typical billionaire movie star. He is a director and so he is in the spotlight, but not quite as much. He has a bit more wiggle room from the paparazzi, but not much. Sebastian is interesting to follow because he believes he is a different person, but eventually sees that he hasn’t changed all that much. His epiphany is a catalyst in which he has to decide whether to give it his all, or throw the towel in and return to his selfish lifestyle.  Grace is completely torn because she sees the person Hart was and the person he can be, but she struggles with what is best for her son, and her own personal desires she wants to succumb to. Ultimately, Sebastian missed Grace’s brutal honesty – something he doesn’t get with people always rushing to do his bidding. The question ends up being whether Sebastian wants to change, or if he just wants her to challenge him while he continues with his egotistical behaviors. He’s somewhat of a conundrum because he’s definitely a self-centered person, but he also behaves completely opposite when doing the nicest things for both Grace and Cody.

The character list within this book was short. Grace’s best friend, co-worker, Sebastian’s brother, and the jerk-face paparazzo was pretty much it for supporting characters with a purpose. I appreciated that both Shelly and Harrison knew the end game all along despite both Grace and Sebastian fully denying things for a long time. There were other characters involved, but they didn’t live up to their possible full potential. I was a little irritated with the introduction of Grace’s mother-in-law because she really didn’t serve much of a purpose at all. Ultimately nothing was ever resolved with her, so I question her appearance other than to add a little drama and Grace making a decision for her life, which could have been handled any number of other way. Also, we got a small glimpse into Cody’s school project, but never much else. I had been hoping we’d see more of that – or Cody and Sebastian presenting it with Grace unsuspecting – something like that. Oh! I almost forgot about plain-faced Justin! Haha! I had a bit of an issue with his character as well because again, no resolve. I kept getting the feeling there was more to him, like he was going to end up being evil and Seb would have to swoop in and save the day or something, but he just sort of dropped out. So I guess, in reflection, this book did have a few technicalities that could have been better addressed. Besides those, it is still a pretty good read with well-developed main characters. I read it quickly and was satisfied with the story from the romance aspect. And despite the deficiencies with a couple of the secondary characters, I still very much liked Hart and Ford and was pleased to spend time with them. I plan to visit Ms. Couper’s books again in the future.

Kindle version provided by Entangled/Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.