Hello everyone!
And we love every moment of it!
Ms Woods returns to her Billionaire Princes series with her next installment, and there's only one more left after this, so buckle up and let's see where it all takes us, shall we?
Because once we've finished with this particular series of books it's on to some other heroes that will undoubtedly catch our mind and our hearts just as much as every other of the ones Ms Woods writes does.
I'm honestly really looking forward to it.
Before we can do anything, however, we do need to check in with the Princes and their up-and-coming CEO, Lucas who, if you remember, is a bit of a geek, or so he claims for himself. Whether or not he truly is remains to be seen.
We'll probably have some answer through The Valentine Billionaire, at that!
Links to previous, related blog posts by Ms Woods can be found at the bottom of this page, as per usual.
Our story begins with Lucas having coffee with his friend Kai, who just so happens to be an All Black, and who is getting married that weekend to a New Zealand movie star. He also manages to double book himself, agreeing to meet his fiancée AND pick his little sister up from the airport, so Lucas does the guy a solid and goes to the airport himself.
Little does Kai know that Lucas and Alex share some history: on her 18th birthday she asked him to kiss her, and he did, but given that their fathers have some sort of feud going on nothing more ever happened (and also, Lucas is 8 years Alex's senior).
Alex, our female protagonist, is an Olympic medalist who won silver while running track, and has been pushing herself ever since because gold is the goal, especially where her mother is concerned, but readers quickly come to realize it may not be what Alex herself wants, as she's disillusioned and down when we first meet her.
Lucas takes her out for a quick coffee before he has to head back to the office, but the two of them do agree to pretend to be dating for the wedding since Kai has been pestering Lucas for his plus one, and Alex knows her ex will be there with his new girlfriend, so this could be a grand thing to mess with everyone (Lucas' ex included).
Of course neither one of them counts on the fact they're still ridiculously attracted to each other, and they do loop Kai in when he comes huffing and puffing how Lucas shouldn't be dating his little sister because her relationship with her ex already soured his friendships and yada yada yada.
Excuse me, sir, to quote a movie: who gave you control of her lips?!?
Through the wedding, as things unfold and first her mother, then her father are told of the deception, all the while her mother is passive-aggressively telling Lucas off because Alex needs to "focus more on her training not on men" and her father is just being a prick of epic proportions, and this whole thing starts to sound like it's the 15th not the 21st century, you start to wonder just what is wrong with this particular family.
They have the money, they aren't short on it, and people want to see Alex through sponsorships and other deals because of her medal, but all her family act as if she's 14 and doesn't know her own mind or what she wants - which coincidentally happens to be Lucas.
They mostly say screw it and end up in bed together when shit REALLY hits the fan after her father finds out, and both the parents corner Alex as if she were 16 and sneaking out, not 24; her father, a hot shot for the crown, threatens to withdraw marital support and sell the house her mother's living in if she doesn't stop seeing Lucas (oh yeah, they're divorced, to top it off), and her mom literally almost blows a gasket the minute Alex might want to talk just how exhausted she is and how she can't push herself any further.
So, she agrees to their demands, but then continued seeing Lucas for the next two weeks in secret, learning that she might have an opportunity to teach some fitness classes at a gym if she chooses, and all of a sudden there's another future in the cards, one where she doesn't have to torture her body so much and feel so guilty about every single thing she eats.
Oh, spoiler alert (and a trigger warning): she uses running to control at least one part of her life at this point, and occasionally purges ... which is one of those unhealthy ways to deal with food and situations.
And of the lot who say they're her family or love her, only Lucas is able to see this happening and points directly at it, though he makes no demands on her and simply tells her that he's there for her. See, he also happens to get the truth about the father feud out of Nick Prince, who explains that Olivia, the Prince matriarch who is dead at this point in the story, was originally engaged to Alex's dad, but broke up with him after Nick made his advances and married him.
She also happened to have married him mostly for his money, though she did come to love him through time, something Lucas is in a state of shock about, because the reason he broke up with his ex is precisely because she boasted to a friend that he was loaded and she almost had him.
So.
Alex finally decides to confront her father after her mother has another meltdown, and goes to do just that, effectively telling him to go fuck himself when he continues with his threats since she's dropping her career, and then promptly passing out in his office. He revives her and coaxes-bullies some sugar and food down into her, frightened after lifting her and realizing just how thin she is and how much on the edge her body seems to be.
He also reveals that the reason the family fell apart isn't because HE cheated, but because HER MOTHER cheated, and the parents kept this from their children so Alex wouldn't lose her mother's support system.
He does, however, agree to Alex's terms, and explains that, after Marama's accident that robbed her of a career in athletics, she fell into depression that the kids seemed to heal a little, but his workaholic tendencies seemed to bring right back, and she never truly dealt with it, instead fueling her own obsessions through her daughter.
But Alex has by now reached her breaking point and firmly tells her mother what's what, then goes straight to Lucas to tell him that she's now free to ACTUALLY be his - not that he was having many issues with it, after all, taking over from your retiring father to be CEO is a lot for anyone, besides he mentions at one point in the book that if all goes belly-up he'll just ask Alex to marry him.
So we know he's serious, and we also always know she's serious, and now it looks like they can finally have a shot at an actual relationship out in the open, which is where we leave them!
This is probably one of my favourite Prince books, not that it's easy picking favourites since Ms Woods has this innate talent to ensure you'll be able to see at least parts of yourself reflected back in characters as you read her stories. I resonated particularly well with Alex because of her circumstances (no, not the professional sports or the like, but some family and emotional aspects) and it broke my heart to see just how impossible her family was.
Her brother basically bopped right out, he had his own career and now a wife, and didn't feature much otherwise so he left her to fend for herself, and she was constantly being pulled in two directions with her parents, who couldn't for the life of them let her live her own life!
Lucas was incredibly sweet and patient, and I'm really, really happy he's the hero who gets Alex's heart, because they mesh really well together, and, to coin a New Zealand phrase, he's also hot as.
The book should be read with some caution given its topics of mental disorder, unhealthy situations and eating disorders, but for all that it's all handled very, very well and brings stories to a VERY satisfying conclusion.
So why not pick up The Valentine Billionaire when it releases widely on March 12? I promise you, you won't regret it!
10/10 recommend.
xx
*image not mine
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