By: Louisa
Masters
Narrated by: Seb Yarrick
Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 04-04-19
Language: English
Publisher: Dreamspinner
Press
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Sometimes love takes
balls.
Newly retired championship
footballer Simon Wood is taking on his next challenge. His plan for a charity
to provide funding for underprivileged children to pursue football as a career
has passed its first hurdle: he has backers and an executive consultant. Now
it’s time to get the ball rolling.
Lucien Morel, heir to the
multibillion-euro Morel Corporation, is shocked—and thrilled—to learn his
father has volunteered him as consultant to a fledgling football charity.
Better yet, the brains behind it all is heartthrob Simon Wood, his teenage idol
and crush.
Although Simon and Lucien
get off on the wrong foot, it’s not long before they’re getting along like a
house on fire—sparks included. But with the charity under public scrutiny, can
their romance thrive?
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Cat gives this one 3 Meows...
Simon is an ex-footballer star. He is now opening a
charity and looking for backing with the Morel Corporation in Paris. Not only
does he get more than he asks for he gets a consultant as well. Lucien has had
a crush on Simon since he was young and is more than happy to have this
opportunity plus, he has wanted to expand his father’s charity into the sports and
arts fields. The two men have great chemistry.
The story is well written, fast-paced, and the
characters are interesting as is the plot. The story is good, and I liked it, I just didn’t
quite fall in love with it. I like a bit of conflict and the story just ran
really smooth and sweet.
The narration was okay it just didn't pull me in and
hook me.If you like a sweet romance, ex-sports heroes, millionaires,
coming out and an allover sweet happy romance this is for you.
Excerpt…
NOT FIDGETING was hard.
That’s stupid, he told himself. He was Simon Wood, for
fuck’s sake, a championship professional athlete. He’d been in more
high-pressure situations than most people would care to even imagine—on the
pitch, in the locker room, in the media spotlight. He was used to being
nervous, and not since he was nineteen had he felt the urge to fidget.
This was more important
than anything else he’d done, however, although he’d never say so to the
millions of football fans around the world, many of whom either idolized or
loathed him. But it was. As much as he’d always loved playing football, his
career as an athlete was never going to be forever, and while it brought
entertainment and pleasure to many, ultimately that had been fleeting. This, though…
this could last a long time and benefit a lot of young people.
So Si made a concerted
effort not to tap his fingers on the chair arms as he sat in the executive
reception of the Morel Corporation in Paris. It was a fantastic coup to have
even gotten this appointment with Édouard Morel—most applications for
charitable funds went through the Morel Foundation’s director—but once Si had
retired and made the decision that this was what he wanted to do next, he’d
called in just about every favor he’d ever been owed and leaned on a few
contacts he’d made in his playing years just to get this meeting. The Morel
Corporation had been his top pick when he’d been compiling a list of possible
backers because Édouard Morel was known for following through on promises to
charities and for generosity. He needed the older man’s full backing, including
his contacts and influence, not just to be one of many charities on the
Foundation’s list.
“Monsieur Wood?” Si looked
up as the extremely elegant executive receptionist came toward him, her
professional smile just that tiny bit more than it should be.
He was used to that, of course, from both women and men, and any other time he
may have considered signaling that he was open to her offer, but not today. Not
here. He would do nothing to bollocks up this meeting.
He kept his smile as
neutral as possible as he stood. “Yes?”
“If you come this way,
Monsieur Morel will see you now.” Her manner slipped back to purely
professional. His message had obviously been received.
Taking a deep breath and
trying not to be obvious about it, Si followed her down a hallway. At the end
was a set of double doors, and with each step closer, his heart pounded a tiny
bit louder in his ears. Relax, Si. You can do this.
They reached the doors,
and the woman—she’d told him her name earlier, but he couldn’t for the life of
him remember it—knocked once before opening one and poking her head in. A
moment later she opened both doors wide and stepped back, motioning for him to
enter.
“Thank you,” he said, his
throat suddenly dry, and walked past her. He heard the doors close behind him,
but his focus was on the man rising from a fancy chair behind the big desk
across the room. “Monsieur Morel, I’m so pleased to meet you,” Si said as he
crossed the space between them, hand outstretched. “I’m Simon Wood.” He knew
the man spoke English, which was a great relief since his French was not good
and mainly limited to the sort of slurs that could be used against opponents
during a football match.
“I recognize you,” Édouard
Morel replied, smiling broadly. “I am not so great a sports fan as my son, but
even I could not fail to know who you are.” He shook Si’s hand and gestured for
him to sit, while Si wondered if the comment about not being a great sports fan
meant he was screwed.
Only one way to find out.
“I must confess, I am very
curious about this new venture you wanted to speak about. I am not in the habit
of funding new businesses, but several people insisted I must see you.”
Oh, bloody hell. It sounded like Morel was setting up for a
refusal already, and Si had only introduced himself!
Louisa Masters started
reading romance much earlier than her mother thought she should. While other
teenagers were sneaking out of the house, Louisa was sneaking romance novels in
and working out how to read them without being discovered. She’s spent most of
her life feeling sorry for people who don’t read, convinced that books are the
solution to every problem. As an adult, she feeds her addiction in every spare
second, only occasionally tearing herself away to do things like answer the
phone and pay bills. She spent years trying to build a “sensible” career,
working in bookstores, recruitment, resource management, administration, and as
a travel agent, before finally conceding defeat and devoting herself to the
world of romance novels.
Louisa has a long list of
places first discovered in books that she wants to visit, and every so often
she overcomes her loathing of jet lag and takes a trip that charges her
imagination. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she whines about the
weather for most of the year while secretly admitting she’ll probably never
move.
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great excerpt
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