GRR Reviews Billionaire Protector: A Dark Romance by Nikki Chase

Billionaire Protector is a dark romance, in that there is kidnapping involved, usually a woman being held prisoner, and falls for the captor. At least this novel has a proper motivation and reason for holding her, but I honestly don't see a romance from this other than Stockholm syndrome. Add that to the extremely unsatisfying ending, and I find this book quite hard to accept.

To recap, Alice started as a waitress and gone to culinary school, and now is a chef at a local restaurant. There is this guy who's obviously rich and looks somewhat familiar that comes in every week, always order the same thing, and usually had a complaint or two, but ate the food nonetheless. But he's otherwise harmless despite giving off a dangerous bad boy vibe. Until one day, he suddenly made her an offer she can't refuse... He'll double her salary if she'll come work as his personal chef at his mansion 2 hours out of town. But once there, there seems to be way too much security on the grounds, and Alice found that Seth, that's the guy's name, is basically keeping her prisoner, albeit with a ton of regret. All he can say is he's doing this for her safety, and she's desperately looking for an escape... even as Seth revealed his vulnerable side. But Seth is fighting a ruthless enemy who has no regard for human life, and he'll get at Seth any way he can, through Alice if possible... But how do you keep someone safe when that person only wanted to be free?

To explain the problem, I'll have to spoil the ending.

SPOILER AHEAD

I TOLD YOU SO

Seth has an enemy that's totally ruthless and kills people left and right if they get in the way, and he will go after the family of people if those people don't fall in line. Alice was totally unconnected except Seth has a soft spot for her because she was nice to him while visiting prison he was in as a cooking instructor. When Seth noticed someone in the rival organization at the restaurant, Seth has to keep Alice safe... at his place, except he refused to tell her why. So her thought was to escape, and obviously, when she managed to escape, Seth's enemies caught her. So Seth mounted a rescue mission, and it was easily successful.

Which begs the questions

1) WHY doesn't he just TELL HER? Sheesh. Keeping her out of the loop doesn't keep her safe! And only one guard on her? It's almost as if he dared her to escape.

2) If all it takes was Seth and four guys to kill the rival leader and his goons, without a single casualty, it should have been done a LONG TIME AGO! All this talk about the rival being utterly ruthless and reach anyone anytime and assault would be suicide, this is WAY TOO EASY!

Add this to the lack of chemistry between the two, only some weird tension that's not quite sexual, I honestly don't see what's so romantic about it.


Category: Dark Romance

Primary Plot: Lady chef was held prisoner by a man who wanted to protect her, without telling her why. Can she fall for such a protector?

Tropes: protector, woman in peril, kidnapping, hot for boss

Overall Rating:  2/5