Tome Thursday: Unguarded

Hello everyone!

I confess.

Where's Cersei Lannister? Someone get her, I'm confessing here!

Ahem.

I confess I'm cheating just a little bit this week with the book blog post, because I'm actually reviewing a novella and not a novel, but I got my hands on it yesterday evening and read it in one go (like, I literally almost didn't take a good breath in between) because I loved it so much.

Then again, it's been a while since I've read a new Noelle Adams release and felt super excited about it.

Okay, no, I'm lying, I HAVE read her books in the interim as well, but somehow never got to typing a blog post for it all. Considering she's one of my go-to contemporary romance authors it's a shame, really.

So without further ado, allow me to introduce Unguarded.

Unguarded is the first of a trilogy of books that all deal with some aspect of a fairy tale, and Unguarded is no exception because it covers the story about Beauty and the Beast. Well, mostly. In this story, the beast is kind of just a grouch and doesn't stop being a grouch at the end, but that's ok really.

Charlie, our protagonist, was loved and cared for by her parents for eighteen years until their untimely death, at which point she was left on her own and with a trust fund she wouldn't be able to access until she was twenty-four years old. Enter Simon, the trustee who was responsible for making sure that the money was the way it should be and who took care of all the girl's finances until the time when he handed the trust over to her.

We get to meet Charlie and Simon when Charlie's just coming home from a bad date and forgets the code for the security alarm so Simon rushes down the stairs with a baseball bat to fend off any intruders. As you do. This leads them to have a heart-to-heart, of sorts, where he counsels her to make sure she doesn't wear HER heart on her sleeve too much.

Men will probably want to marry her for her money. Not all of them, but most.

Did I say Charlie's super rich?

Anyway, the lesson learned is that she needs to watch how men act when they think they're alone and not when they're around her, at which point we have a scene where Charlie eyes Simon carefully putting her coat away after holding it for a bit (and potentially smelling the leftover perfume, but you'll have to read about it for yourself whether it's true or not).

One year later and the pair of them are on their way to the wedding of one of Charlie's old school friends, mostly because they were both invited and Charlie had bullied Simon into tagging along.

Also, she has a plan: over the year since the coat scene, she's come to realize she only feels herself with Simon and that she wants him to see her as something more than just the daughter to a good friend of his (note on ages, she's twenty-five and he's forty at this point).

Of course, Simon is being a tough cookie, mostly because he thinks that it would be indecent and inappropriate to start dating or even just hanging out with Charlie, which initially hurts the girl but then spurs her into action.

It helps that her two best friends, Hannah and Madison, are also both here on a mission this wedding weekend to snare the guys they want (or at least have a hot fling, but with Ms Adams it's safe to say there's going to be a happily ever after). They tell Charlie to just keep trucking, but to back off if Simon REALLY isn't into her.

With the wedding activities underway, it takes some skill to find moments for the pair of them to be on their own, and there are hints that Simon issn't as indifferent as he appears, but he just keeps pulling back.

At which point Charlie goes over to his room in the middle of the night to hash it all out, leading to Simon unable to stop himself and the two of them having sex.

Now, I was worried Simon would think this was a mistake come morning, but to my delighted surprise Ms Adams went a slightly different route, during which Simon was okay-ish behind closed doors, but still keeping a distance in public which nearly drove Charlie mad. He seemed to honestly believe people thought it was weird the two of them were together (or that was his idea anyway) and she was honestly hurt by that assumption because then SHE was starting to think something was wrong with the whole enterprise.

Luckily for all reading ladies out there, Charlie once again grabs the bull by the proverbial horns and drags Simon to a different room just off the hall from the reception where she lays into him to take what he wants and let go.

And he wants her. So sex against the wall it is.

Now Simon's open to the idea of going slowly and dating and all that jazz, but Charlie and he still hit a roadbump because, well, it wouldn't be a good book without it. Having reached the conclusion about dating, she thought she was satisfied until she saw how happy her friends were with their newfound relationships (told you) and she realized that she wanted the same thing.

Obviously, it's what Simon wants, too - in his own words, he has no clue how to date, only how to be in love, and he's so in love with Charlie that it physically hurts him sometimes.

Not to worry, Charlie loves him, too, so they can skip the whole dating bit and go straight into a serious relationship.

Six months later, they're still going strong when Charlie decides to poke the bear out of hybernation by activating the alarm (again), prompting another baseball bat episode, and Simon to sheepishly show her what he was working on, which was a fairy tale proposal (since he knows he's not a prince, but he wanted to come as close as possible). She says yes, and it's a happily ever after they both worked hard for and wanted!

This is a non-complicated, fast read at just under a hundred pages which I highly recommend. It may feature a grouchy guy, but the girl more than makes up for it by arguing her cause reasonably and without drama.

Also, the ending is just too cute.

I can't wait to read the other two installments in this series!

xx

*image not mine