The Villain (Boston Belles, #2). ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Villain by L.J. Shen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cruel. Coldblooded. Hades in a Brioni suit.
Cillian Fitzpatrick has been dubbed every wicked thing on planet earth.
To the media, he is The Villain.
To me, he is the man who (reluctantly) saved my life.
Now I need him to do me another, small solid.
Bail me out of the mess my husband got me into.
What’s a hundred grand to one of the wealthiest men in America, anyway?
Only Cillian doesn’t hand out free favors.
The price for the money, it turns out, is my freedom.
Now I’m the eldest Fitzpatrick brother’s little toy.
To play, to mold, to break.
Too bad Cillian forgot one, tiny detail.
Persephone wasn’t only the goddess of spring; she was also the queen of death.
He thinks I’ll buckle under the weight of his mind games.
He is about to find out the most lethal poison is also the sweetest.
The Villain

“But what are villains, my dear wife, if not misunderstood heroes?”

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💜💛💚
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📔📙
World building: 🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 👤👤👤👤👤

The setting: Boston Massachusetts

The Hero(s): Cillian Fitzpatrick (a.k.a. Kill) – The first born of the Fitzpatrick children, brother to Hunter and CEO of Royal Pipelines Oil Company. Cillian has a reputation as a villain due to the fact that he is cold, he fired a bunch of staff as soon as he became CEO, an Oil spill that his company was responsible for and other things.

The heroine: Persephone Penrose – Persephone believes in love and has had a crush on Kill for years. She wants him and in a weak moment tells him so, though he crushes her hopes and dreams so she marries someone else who ends up leaving her and going into hiding after gambling away mob money.

The Love Story: Persephone goes to Cillian for help when the mob forces her to pay her husbands debt. Cillian gives her a proposition that she can’t really refuse. Though Cillian is emotionless and cold.

I like the fact that though Cillian seems to be almost a sociopath with no empathy or feelings, it comes out soon enough that he does feel something when it comes to persephone. He purposely doesn’t look at her because of this. He is afraid that feelings will get in the way of his singleminded focus on business which is what he was bred for.

You can tell that Persephone is getting to Cillian but he is often a jerk to her in order to protect himself from his feelings and desires. The push and pull between them makes for a terrific story. Deep down he feels he isn’t good enough for her and that his desires are beneath her. There is also a secret that he has which he doesn’t want her or anyone else to find out.

Cillian has a nemesis who he grew up with that knows his secret and is trying to destroy him. It is funny how Persephone turns the tables on Cillian while he tries to keep her at arms length. I really enjoyed this entire book. L.J. Shen writes great anti-heroes.