ARC Review: Ruthless Pride (Dynasties: Seven Sins 1) by Naima Simone

Title: Ruthless Pride

Series: Dynasties: Seven Sins 1

Author: Naima Simone

Release Date: May 1, 2020 (ARC)

Published By: Harlequin Desire

Category: Contemporary – Romance – Billionaire – Family Saga

Type: Digital – Paperback

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Rating:

Heat:

Blurb: 

Some men are meant to sin…

Pride made him what he is.

But desire might change him forever…

Millionaire CEO Joshua Lowell earned his icy reserve and arrogant pride through painful experience. He refuses to allow gorgeous but determined reporter Sophie Armstrong to dredge up his family’s dark past—or circulate rumors of his secret child. But Joshua’s fierce pride is at war with his heated desire for Sophie, the only woman who could ruin him…or save him from himself.

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Favorite Lines:

Idiot that she was, she should’ve been furious, or even a little intimidated, but no. She’d just been turned the hell on.  ~  Sophie

“I might be so goddamn deep I don’t know if I can find my way out … But you have the control here. The power. So what are you going to do with me, Sophie? What are you going to do with us?”  ~  Josh

Vocabulary Word:

Ephemeral

adjective

ephem·​er·​al | \ i-ˈfem-rəl  , -ˈfēm-; -ˈfe-mə-, -ˈfē-  \

Definition of ephemeral (Entry 1 of 2)

1: lasting a very short time ephemeral pleasures

2: lasting one day only an ephemeral fever

noun

Definition of ephemeral (Entry 2 of 2)

: something that lasts for a very short time: something ephemeral specifically: a plant that grows, flowers, and dies in a few days

Excerpt:

          Haley heaved a sigh. “Joshua, let me introduce you to Sophie Armstrong,” she said, a thick coat of resignation painting her words. 

          “I don’t know a Sophie Armstrong,” he stated coldly to his assistant, although he didn’t remove his gaze from the woman in front of him. Maybe some instinctual part of him recognized that she was the biggest threat in the room—a threat to his schedule, his carefully laid-out day…his control. 

          “The name would be familiar if you bothered to answer any one of my phone calls or emails.”She snorted, cocking a dark eyebrow. “I’ve been trying to contact you, Mr. Lowell, and you’ve ducked and dodged every attempt.”

          He frowned. Yes, he’d been busier than usual lately, but he would’ve remembered if she’d reached out to him. “I’ve never ducked or dodged anyone.”Not even when he’d desperately longed to. “Especially someone who doesn’t have enough manners or sense to not force herself into a place of business where she wasn’t invited or wanted without an appointment. Now that you’re here, you have exactly thirty seconds—twenty-nine more seconds than I would give anyone else—to explain what the hell you’re talking about.”

          Others would’ve—had—recoiled and backed down from the hard, ice-cold fury in his voice. But Sophie Armstrong didn’t even flinch. Instead, she met his glare with one of her own. A quicksilver flash of surprise flickered within him. He wasn’t arrogant, but he also acknowledged his appeal to the opposite sex. Understanding his money proved just as much of a lure as the appearance he’d inherited from his handsome father, he never lacked for female attention. Or sex. 

          But to this woman, he might as well be Quasimodo taking a break from his Notre Dame tower to hang out in the Black Crescent offices. Sophie Armstrong didn’t bother to employ any advantage her beauty might press—not that it would. But she didn’t know that. 

          No, unless antagonism passed for charm these days, she was confrontational and contemptuous. 

          And goddamn, if it wasn’t hot. 

          She reached into the bag over her shoulder, withdrew a stack of papers and slapped the pile on his desk. “That’s what I’m talking about. All the emails I’ve sent you. And I can pull out my phone and scroll through and play every voice mail—there are fifteen of them. All asking you to reply in a timely manner. Apparently, your idea of timely and mine don’t coincide because I meant at least a couple of days and yours apparently runs along the line of seasons in Narnia.”

          The snort slipped from him before he could contain it. He shouldn’t be amused. And he certainly shouldn’t let her see it. 

          “You have five seconds left,” he informed her, leaning forward and with a will that had been forged in the fires of desperation, humiliation and pride over a decade ago, he shifted his attention back to his screen. “I suggest you make the most of it.”

          A soft, feminine growl filled the air, and the reverberation of it rolled in his gut, clenching the muscles there so hard he nearly grunted in pain. With the wrenching came the dark but HD-clear image of her, head thrown back, all that hair sprawled across black sheets, beads of sweat dotting the slender column of her throat. And that same, rumbling growl vibrating from her. 

          Only it sounded hungrier, needier…

          Christ, he needed her out of his office. 

          “I’m assuming that king-of-the-manor-got-notime-for-peasants thing intimidates other people, but I hate to break it to you. It does nothing for me.”She crossed her arms over her chest, and if Jesus had come down at that moment and warned him against giving in to his baser needs, Joshua still wouldn’t have been able to stop his gaze from dipping to the slightly lessthan-a-handful but firm breasts that pushed against the plain white dress shirt. Guilt streaked through him, slick and dirty. He wasn’t his father; he didn’t ogle women or treat them like eye candy, there for his pleasure. Even women who made his dick hard but he didn’t particularly like. “I’m telling you now—like I did in my last voice message and two emails—I’ll be writing my story with or without you. But it would be a better one with you.”

          Story. What story? 

          A sense of foreboding wormed its way into his chest, hollowing it out. Making room for the churning unease. 

          “I repeat,” he stated, the flat tone revealing none of the steadily encroaching panic that crept into his vision, that squeezed his rib cage like a steadily tightening vise. “What are you talking about?”

          “The anniversary piece on the Black Crescent fiasco that I’m writing for the Falling Brook Chronicle. And unlike all of the articles written about that time period, I would like to include an interview with the company’s current CEO.”

          Anger crystallized within him, hard and diamond bright. And sharp enough to cut glass. The “get out”burned on his tongue, singeing him. But he extinguished the words before they could escape him, refusing to betray any emotion to this woman who sought to rip open the seams of the past, to expose old but unhealed wounds for public consumption. To relive the nightmare of his father emptying the family bank accounts as well as embezzling millions from his clients and disappearing, abandoning him, his mother and brothers to the wolves. The abrasive rub of judging eyes and not-so-hushed whispers. The smothering guilt that ten families were left devastated and destitute because of his father’s actions. The agonizing pain from being deceived and abandoned by the man who’d raised him, who’d loved him and who he’d respected. 

          This woman had no clue about the pressure from the weight of that guilt, that responsibility. How they straddled his shoulders to the point of suffocation at times. How dealing had become second nature to him. There’d been no one to lean on when his father disappeared, when he’d taken on the responsibility of repaying the families so they wouldn’t sue for the remaining money his father hadn’t disappeared with. When his mother withdrew from the exclusive community of Falling Brook, New Jersey. When his twin brother, Jacob, fled to Europe to backpack his problems away, and his youngest brother, Oliver, dropped out of college and become the poster child for professional playboy, complete with a nasty cocaine habit. 

          Nothing in his Ivy League education—not even the economic courses he’d taken at his father’s insistence—had prepared him for being alone, grieving and terrified with the fate of not just his family but ten others on his still-young shoulders. Of having to make the bitter decision of burying his own dreams so he could repair those of others. 

          He’d grown up fast. Too fast. 

          And damn if he needed an article written by an ambitious reporter—no matter if she possessed the face of a fairy queen and the body of a Victoria’s Secret Angel—to drag him back to those desolate, black times when he’d breathed fear as much as he did air. 

          “No.”

          Joshua gave her credit—she didn’t flinch at the flat, blunt answer. 

          Instead, she tilted her head to the side, that fall of thick caramel-and-sunlight hair sliding over her shoulder, and studied him as if he were a problem to solve. Or an opponent to wrestle and pin into submission. 

          “I can understand why you would initially be reluctant to speak with me—”

          “Oh, you can?” he interrupted, trying but failing to keep the bite from his voice. Silently, he cursed himself for revealing even that much. The last fifteen years had taught him that he couldn’t afford to betray the slightest weakness of character lest he be accused of being just like his father. Other people were allowed room for mistakes. He was not offered that courtesy. While others could trip up in private, his missteps were splashed across newspapers and online columns for fodder. Including her paper. “So you’ve had a—how did you so eloquently put it?—fiasco in your life and had every paper in the country report on it? Including the Falling Brook Chronicle? Which, if I remember correctly, was one of the harshest and most critical? Well, good,” he continued, not granting her the opportunity to answer. “Since you have experienced it, you’ll understand why I’m ending this conversation.

Highlight:

          “Stalking me, Ms. Armstrong?” he drawled, his fingers gripping his water bottle so tight, the plastic squeaked in protest. 

          He immediately loosened his hold. Damn, he’d learned long ago to never betray any weakness of emotion. People were like sharks scenting bloody chum in the water when they sensed a chink in his armor. But when in this woman’s presence, his emotions seemed to leak through like a sieve. The impenetrable shield barricading him that had been forged in the fires of pain, loss and humiliation came away dented and scratched after an encounter with Sophie. And that presented as much of a threat, a danger to him as her insatiable need to prove that he was a deadbeat father and puppet to a master thief. 

          “Stalking you?” she scoffed, bending down to swipe her own bottle of water and a towel off the ground. With a strength that could be described only as Herculean, he didn’t drop his gaze to the sweet, firm curve of her ass. He deserved a medal, an award, the key to the city for not giving in to the urge. “Need I remind you, it was you who showed up at my job yesterday, not the other way around. So I guess that makes us even in the showing-up-where-we’re-notwanted department.”

          “Oh, we’re not even close to anything that resembles even, Sophie,” he said, using her name for the first time aloud. And damn if it didn’t taste good on his tongue. If he didn’t sound as if he were stroking the two syllables like they were bare, damp flesh. 

          She didn’t immediately reply, instead lifting the clear bottle to her mouth and sipping from it. His gaze dipped to that pursed, wicked mouth, and a primal throb set up in his blood, his dick. Stand down, he ordered his unruly flesh. His loose gray basketball shorts wouldn’t conceal the effect she had on him. And no way in hell would he give her that to use against him. 

          “I hate to disappoint you and your dreams of narcissistic grandeur, but I’ve been a member of this gym for years.”She swiped her towel over her throat and upper chest. “I’ve seen you here, but it’s not my fault if you’ve never noticed me.”

          “That’s bullshit,” he snapped. “I would’ve noticed you.”

          The words echoed between them, the meaning in them pulsing like a thick, heavy heartbeat in the sudden silence that cocooned them. Her silver eyes flared wide before they flashed with…what? Surprise? Irritation? Desire. A liquid slide of lust prowled through him like a hungry—so goddamn hungry—beast. 

          The air simmered around them. How could no one else see it shimmer in waves from the concrete floor like steam from a sidewalk after a summer storm? 

          She was the first to break the visual connection, and when she ducked her head to pat her arms down, the loss of her eyes reverberated in his chest like a physical snapping of tautly strung wire. He fisted his fingers at his sides, refusing to rub the echo of soreness there. 

          “Do you want me to pull out my membership card to prove that I’m not some kind of stalker?”She tilted her head to the side. “I’m dedicated to my job, but I refuse to cross the line into creepy…or criminal.”

          He ground his teeth against the apology that shoved at his throat, but after a moment, he jerked his head down in an abrupt nod. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”And then because he couldn’t resist, because it still gnawed at him when he shouldn’t have cared what she—a reporter—thought of him or not, he added, “That predilection seems to be in the air.”

          She narrowed her eyes on him, and a tiny muscle ticked along her delicate but stubborn jaw. Why that sign of temper and forced control fascinated him, he opted not to dwell on. “And what is that supposed to mean?”she asked, the pleasant tone belied by the anger brewing in her eyes like gray storm clouds. 

          Moments earlier, he’d wondered if fury or desire had heated her gaze. Now he had his answer. Because he now faced her anger, now had confirmation that when she looked like she wanted to knee him in the balls the silver darkened to near black. 

          But when she looked like she just wanted to go to her knees for him, her eyes were molten, pure hot silver. 

          God help him, because, masochistic fool that he’d suddenly become, he craved them both. He wanted her rage, her passion…wanted both to beat at him, heat his skin, touch him. Make him feel. 

          Mentally, he scrambled away from that, that need, like it’d reared up and flashed its fangs at him. The other man he’d been—the man who’d lost himself in passion, paint and life captured on film—had drowned in emotion. Willingly. Joyfully. And when it’d been snatched away—when that passion, that life—had been stolen from him by cold, brutal reality, he’d nearly crumbled under the loss, the darkness. Hunger, wanting something so desperately, led only to the pain of eventually losing it. 

          He’d survived that loss once. Even though it’d been like sawing off his own limbs. He might be an emotional amputee, but dammit, he’d endured. He’d saved his family, their reputation and their business. But he’d managed it by never allowing himself to need again. 

          And Sophie Armstrong, with her pixie face and warrior spirit, wouldn’t undo all that he’d fought and silently screamed to build. 

          She must’ve interpreted his silence as an indictment, because her full mouth firmed into an aggravated line, and her shoulders slowly straightened, her posture militant and, yes, defensive. As she should be. “If it makes it easier to look at that pretty face in the mirror, then go ahead and throw verbal punches,” she sneered. Pretty face. He didn’t even pretend to take that for a compliment. Not that way her voice twisted around the words. “But I did the research, and the information I received was solid, and my sources were legitimate.”

          “Sources,” he repeated, leaping on that clue. “So you had more than one?”

          She didn’t move, but she might as well as have slammed up an invisible door between them. “Yes,” she replied after a long moment. “I didn’t rely on gossip or groundless rumors.”

          “Your sources seem to believe they know a lot about not just my family, the inner workings of Black Crescent, but my personal life, as well,” he said, drawing closer to her. 

          The seeds that their earlier conversation in the Chronicle’s conference room had planted started to sprout roots. Roots of suspicion and hated mistrust wound their way into his head, threading around his heart. He resented Sophie for planting those kernels of suspicion about the people who existed in his small inner circle. Small for a reason. Trial by fire had taught him he could trust a precious few, and only those precious few had access to his family, the details of his life. Could one of them be the “source” she referred to? As he’d done on the drive back to his office yesterday, he again ran through their faces: Haley, Jake, Oliver. 

          Haley, no. Never. She’d proved her loyalty hundreds of times over. But his brothers…Jesus, he wanted to dismiss any notion that they could’ve turned on him, but…He couldn’t. They resented him, resented that he’d become their father, never appreciating the sacrifices he’d made so they could live free of the burden of Black Crescent and the dark shadow it cast. A shadow he constantly existed in but strove to, if not be free of, at least lighten. 

          “I want names, Sophie,” he bit out, the dregs of fear, grief and anger at the possible identities of her sources swirling in his mind roughening his voice. He stepped closer until the scent of citrus, velvet, damp blooms and woman—her—filled his nostrils. Ignoring the lure of that sensual musk, he lowered his head, forcing her to meet his gaze. “If someone is digging into my life and giving information about me, then I deserve to know who they are.” Who I need to protect myself from. “Every man has the right to confront their accusers.”

          She shook her head, her golden-brown ponytail brushing her bare shoulders. “No. The people who spoke to me did so on the assurance of confidentiality, and I won’t betray that. And I absolutely refuse to expose them to the wrath of the Lowell family.”

          The wrath of the Lowell family? What kind of shit was that? “My wrath?” he murmured, edging closer. And closer still until one shift of his feet and their chests would press together. Their sweat-dampened skin would cling. His cock would find a home nestled against her taut stomach. “Do you still have your job? Have you found yourself and that paper you work for served with a defamation suit? If you went to any of the stores or restaurants around here, would you still be waited on or served? No, Sophie.”He leaned down, so close his lips almost grazed her ear. So close, he caught the shiver that worked through her body as his breath hit her lobe. “If I wanted to wage war against someone who came after me, after mine, the first casualty would be you. And since you haven’t been shunned or blackballed yet—because believe me, even with the stain on my last name, I have the power to do all I’ve mentioned—you haven’t felt my wrath. Besides,” he added, and this time he let his mouth brush the rim of her ear. Let himself get his first feel of her skin, her body even if it was just something as small as that. “I would never include others in the battle between us. This, sweetheart, is personal.”

Review: 

Sophie is one-heck of a reporter, having received accolades galore. Her latest focus is on Joshua Lowell and the devastation his father caused several members of Falling Brook fifteen years ago when he embezzled from the trust fund he ran and disappeared. Now as the anniversary of the debacle approaches, she is writing about Joshua intending to put a different spin on the story. She’s uncovered a lot of information and it would seem that the heir of the Lowell family is much more than he displays for the cameras – an altruistic side he never exposes. But Joshua refuses to participate so she runs with the story she has – and garners his attention full force. Invited behind the scenes for a follow-up story, they each glimpse a side of one other that they normally keep well protected. Sophie doesn’t have a past she is proud of either and Joshua is exactly the kind of man who will shatter her. She should stay far away, but that magnetic pull is fierce and before too long, each succumbs to the flaming desire, terrified of how their own story will end.

Joshua isn’t about to trust the head-strong reporter any farther than he can throw her. Keep your enemies closer is the old adage, so he’ll be sure to do so. And maybe the benefits that follow aren’t so bad either. But Sophie has a way of slipping right under Josh’s armor of protection and quickly has him yearning for a life that he long since left behind – scattered to the wind with his father’s betrayal – Josh, the only one to step up and right all of the wrong none of them saw coming. But with his past and people always scrutinizing him, Josh trusts no one. They always leave him anyway in one way or another. Sophie will be no different. So when she suddenly appears to have betrayed him, he is quick to lash out first, never giving her a chance to leave him. He knows it is inevitable anyway. But his mistake could cost him his perfect match in every way and a shot at a life he never dreamed he could ever get back.

I have read Ms. Simone in the past and have enjoyed her work. It’s also been a minute since I have immersed myself in some sexy Harlequin reads. When I came across a new series made up of seven books by seven authors and Ms. Simone kicking them off, I knew I had found something I wanted to dive into. At this point, I have obtained the first three books in the series, so I will be able to continue at least that far in the series. After reading this wonderful book, my excitement has jumped a notch. At just over 200 pages, this book can be devoured easily within a couple of hours. The story started off with a crazy amount of tension and sexual chemistry and kept on giving. Despite their growing feelings for one another, the mistrust lies heavy, like an elephant in the room. Once Josh and Sophie give into their undeniable, nearly tangible attraction, the sparks fly and the defenses crack even further. But the suspicion remains – at least on Josh’s part.

I appreciated Josh’s sense of responsibility and determination to set right the mess of destruction left in his father’s wake. But this inspiring trait also becomes his crutch and greatest flaw. He has become so worried about judgment upon himself based on his father’s decimated reputation, that he loses sight of who he used to be and what he once wanted for his life – preferring to forget about that period in his life since it can never be reclaimed. But Josh isn’t doing it just for himself. He is also trying to repair his mother and brothers’ reputations through his own efforts. But for all of his attempts, he has only garnered disgust from his own siblings who see him as a copy of their traitorous father. Sophie, however, sees past all of this. In her thorough investigative journalism, she has uncovered the Josh of the past and can see the man inside, lying dormant under the tough business mogul persona he projects to the rest of the world. She also realizes that their time together is more than likely going to be limited, so she does her best to help him realize a way back to his old self; the person he lost, and who he longs to be despite his adamant claims otherwise. Sophie draws him out and gives him a kind of hope for the future he hadn’t been able to grasp since taking over the hedge fund. She also recognizes that an artist with talent that oozes out of his pores like Josh’s does isn’t one to be wasted. Unexpectedly, she is given a tool to nudge him in the right direction. If it helps create those small glimpses of happiness he keeps carefully guarded, she isn’t above making use of that tool.

What I do not understand is what happens with the DNA tests. This is the foremost reason that Sophie and Josh end up agreeing to help one another. But other than the reveal of who leaked the results to Sophie, nothing else ever comes of it. It’s revealed early on that Zane supplied a lot of Sophie’s article information, so him giving her the results is no spoiler. However, his book appears to be next, so I am hoping there is some kind of closure to this cliffhanger component. Or are we to assume it was all a ruse and never true? It’s unclear and a bit aggravating. Zane is one of the family heirs that was destroyed by Senior Lowell’s duplicity, so he’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. I am also assuming that Josh’s brothers will have a book of their own, but I could be wrong. I felt that they were left unfinished also. Their assumptions that Josh had turned into their father was cruel and unfair. Given Josh’s search he now has going on, I would say reconciliation is in the air. So there are a few things left wide open and annoyingly incomplete, but I can only guess those elements with tie-up somewhere in the next six books. I also felt the ending was a bit rushed. Granted, the book isn’t all that long anyway, but another chapter or two would have been nice. Don’t get me wrong. It was a perfectly romantic grand gesture for a billionaire romance, but it was fast. Given Sophie’s resolve in their last encounter, her rapid capitulation in that particular scenario didn’t fit and also would have likely affected her career reputation, so a bit off for this specific character.

Despite the oddities above, I found this book enjoyable and a fascinating start to a new Harlequin series. I will be jumping into the next book soon and look forward to seeing how the series progresses. Will the authors have worked together on the plots, or just written something as a stand-alone that doesn’t incorporate the previous books? I don’t know. But I will soon. I truly hope for intersecting plots. If you are looking for a quick read, enjoy millionaire romance, and crave hot and steamy, then this book will bring satisfaction. Ms. Simone did a great job in setting this series up, guaranteeing my return for the next installment.

Kindle version provided by NetGalley/Harlequin in exchange for an honest review.