Heroine Miranda Johansson has had a very bad day. The strait-laced, ultraconservative
stock-market analyst in Chicago’s LaSalle Street financial district just lost
eighty-seven million dollars of her clients’ money in a massive stock-market
implosion. And if that weren’t bad
enough, she just had wild, no-holds-barred sex with a complete stranger on her
coffee break----and that complete stranger turns out to be her new boss! Can Miranda get control of herself without
losing her job, and her mind? Or will
her sexy new boss completely derail her self-discipline, her stock portfolio, and her career? (Not to mention the sudden intrusion of his
manipulative ex-girlfriend---a scheming, ruthless woman who controls half of
Wall Street.)
Will Miranda survive the ups and downs of her new love life,
which is just as volatile and unpredictable as the market? Or will her new romance go down the tubes
along with the economy? Only time will
tell.
Dream Cast:
 |
| Miranda |
 |
| Max |
My Review:
Market for Love by Jill Elaine HughesMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Miranda is a very conservative, very smart stock analyst who has a really bad day. She loses 80+ million dollars in one morning which completely throws her off track. She runs into a very attractive man in the midst of her crisis and ends up having mind-blowing sex with him. This is extremely out of character for her. Later she finds out that her erotic encounter occurred with the new owner of her company. Miranda struggles to figure out who she can maintain her professional career while she is discovering a lot of new things about herself. Max finds he is unable to keep himself away from Miranda and struggles to get closer to her until something happens to both of them and he feels that he needs to back away from their relationship for Miranda's safety and well-being.
I liked how strong and smart Miranda is. She has been excelling in a male-dominated field for a long time, and it was great to see her realize that she could be herself a little more, and still be great at her job. Max was pretty wonderful for the most part- although it is always frustrating to me when someone feels like they have to keep secrets and hurt someone under the umbrella of "protecting them". They definitely had some serious adversity to overcome, and the villain in this story is completely horrible and evil. It was interesting to see how things got resolved, and I was hoping for the sakes of both main characters that they would be able to figure everything out.
One thing that puzzles me is the cover. To me it gives a false impression of what a reader can expect. I know you can't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes I can't help it. I also think that a cover can give a general impression of the vibe of a book- and this cover and story just don't match for me. Overall, I enjoyed this book.
Excerpt:
“I have access to a
private office suite on this floor,” he said, his voice even and
businesslike. “Private bathroom, too, which should also have some better
facial soap available. You can clean up, take a breather, whatever you
need to do. Follow me.” Without waiting for Miranda’s reply, the
man took her by the hand and gently led her across the lobby. Before
Miranda knew what hit her, she was whisked into a small, luxurious office,
complete with leather-on-mahogany furniture, Oriental rugs, and a six-foot-high
decorative fountain.
“The bathroom’s over
there,” the man said, pointing to a doorway just to the right of the
fountain. “If there’s anything else I can get for you, let me know.”
“Umm,” Miranda mumbled
again, and made a beeline for the bath. Her eyes widened as she closed
the heavy paneled door behind her and took in the posh powder room.
Everything was made of marble—even the ceiling. The fixtures were
spotless polished white porcelain. On the gleaming countertop was an array
of high-end toiletries—and a few brands even the hopeless shopaholic Miranda
hadn’t heard of. There was a basket of clean, folded silk-terry
washcloths, and another, smaller basket full of cotton balls and cotton swabs.
There was even a laundry pen for removing clothing stains, a lint brush, and a
miniature fabric steamer. After some consideration, she chose a bottle of
astringent and a cotton ball to strip off her ruined makeup. It worked
perfectly. It even helped exfoliate the top layer of her skin, revealing
a healthy glow she’d never been able to achieve with hundreds of dollars’ worth
of other cleansers. Miranda made a mental note to pick up a bottle of the
stuff next time she was at the mall. She used the laundry pen to clean
the makeup off the collar of her suit, and then applied some moisturizer to her
face, dabbing some extra around her eyes in hopes it would help reduce the
puffiness all her crying had caused.
Satisfied with her
refreshed appearance, Miranda took a deep breath and headed back out into the tall,
super-sexy-yet-anonymous man’s private office.
He was waiting for her
just outside the bathroom door and when her brown eyes met his blue ones, her
stomach did a flip-flop rivaling that of any Olympic diving champion.
“Oh!” she squealed as her hand jerked itself onto her belly.
“Feeling all right?” he
asked. “I have some antacid in my desk drawer if you need it.”
“No, umm, that’s OK,”
Miranda replied, her voice still high-pitched and squeaky. “I umm, I just
hiccupped, is all.” A lie. The truth was, this man was making her
feel—well—quidgy. Quidgy all over, but especially right between her
legs. It was a delightful feeling, but a scary one, too. She decided she
needed to thank him, guzzle her giant espresso, and make a graceful exit before
anything got out of hand. “I, ahhhh, I really need to get back upstairs.”
“Suit yourself,” the man
said. “But you’re espresso’s getting cold. You’re welcome to have a
seat and relax for a few minutes while you finish it.” He indicated one
of the heavy leather armchairs, gesturing for her to sit. Without
thinking, Miranda did. She noticed with surprise that there was a huge
fireplace directly across from her chair. The tall, azure-eyed man
flipped a switch, and a blazing fire appeared out of nowhere.
“Gas fireplaces are the
eighth wonder of the world,” he said as he sat down in the leather chair
opposite her. “Don’t you think?”
“Umm,” was all Miranda
could say. The quidgy feeling that was so delightful in the nether parts
of her body had a funny way of paralyzing her from the neck up. After
much concentration, she finally got her jaw and lips to work. “I, umm,
never knew this place was here,” she stammered.
“My company has several
floors of offices in this building,” the man said. “The management gives
me use of this little private hideaway as thanks for all the money I drop here
in rent. I can use it whenever I need some privacy.” He paused,
smiled. “Or, when someone I know needs some privacy.”
“That’s nice,” Miranda
said, drinking the rest of her espresso in one gulp. The quintuple dose
of caffeine hit her bloodstream like a shot of heroin. She could almost
feel her pupils dilating.
“Are you sure you’re all
right?” the man asked, his turquoise eyes meeting hers. “You seem kind
of—agitated.”
“That’s because I am!” she
blurted. The caffeine was working fast—too fast.
Miranda felt her heart start racing, felt her lips forming words faster than
she could think about what they might be. “I’ve had such a bad day!
I lost eighty-seven million dollars for my clients just this morning! I’m
totally screwed! I’m going to get fired! I hate myself! I’m
….”
“Whoa!” the tall man said,
holding up both hands. “Slow down. Like I said back at the coffee shop,
ingesting that much caffeine in the space of two minutes isn’t good for people
your size. Or to be more specific, very attractive young women of
your size.”
“Are you coming on to me?”
Miranda sputtered, her mouth going a mile a minute. “Because if you are,
you should really stop. You know why? I’m a walking
disaster area. That’s what my last boyfriend called me when we broke
up. Plus ….”
The tall man’s blue eyes
were serious. Miranda felt them drill into her, felt them penetrate the
private, sensual part of herself she’d kept carefully locked away ever since
her last boyfriend—a dry-as-a-bone commodities broker named Paul--had dumped
her more than four years before. And now, the attractive-yet-mysterious
man sitting across from her didn’t just penetrate that most private part of
Miranda’s inner being. He downright melted it—hell, vibrated it—with
just one ice-blue glance. “You don’t look like a walking disaster area to
me,” he said.
“But I am! Didn’t
you hear what I just said? My ex-boyfriend called me a walking
disaster area, and he was right. Because only awalking disaster
area would lose eighty-seven million dollars of her clients’ money in
the space of fifteen minutes.”
The tall man’s expression
softened. He loosened his green silk tie, stretched out his legs a
little. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the stock market in my
career, miss, it’s that you can often earn money back just as fast as you lose
it. If you know how to play the game.”
The man’s acute comment
caught Miranda off-guard. “I ….”
“I bet your work has
something to do with the telecom sector,” he said. The accuracy of his
guess shook Miranda to the core. “That area’s taken quite a beating this
morning, as I understand it.”
“How did you know?”
Miranda’s voice trembled, just as she felt her nether parts getting warmer and
warmer.
“I have a live CNBC feed
in my limo,” he explained. “Plus, by my calculations, that’s the only
market sector where it’s possible for anyone to have lost, say, eighty-seven
million dollars from their fund portfolio just this morning. Am I right?”
Miranda nodded, unable to
speak.
“I bet if you can make
even a portion of that money back for your clients by the end of the market
day, your boss won’t be too upset with you,” he went on. “In fact, I’m
sure of it.”
“B-but I’m an analyst!”
she protested. “I’m not a broker! I have to do weeks and weeks of
research and analysis before I can recommend any stock to my clients. I
can’t day-trade! It’s against the rules!”
“I never said you had to
day-trade,” the man said, leaning in closer. Miranda could feel the tiny
stirrings in the air between them from his breathing. Those stirrings
excited her. Excited her a littletoo much, in fact.
“Then what can I
do?” she sputtered. “The SEC regulations on what analysts can and cannot
do are pretty strict, you know.”
“I’m familiar with all the
SEC regulations, miss. I did your job once myself. What I can tell
you--based upon my own past experience as an analyst—is there is quite a lot
you can accomplish in a short period of time if you’re creative.”
Creative? Miranda wasn’t creative. Not even close.
She was a right-brained, numbers-obsessed, stock-market-loving bean
counter. That was the whole reason she had gone into finance in the first
place instead of say, oil-painting. Miranda voted Republican, checked her
stock portfolio every day, and always wore gray or black pinstriped suits with
pantyhose and high heels.
“Umm,” she stammered for
the umpteenth time that morning. “I’m not really--creative.
I’m more of a ….” She trailed off. Suddenly her tongue felt too large for
her mouth.
“It’s all right, miss,”
the tall, azure-eyed man said, taking her right hand in his and squeezing
it. “We all have bad days in this business. Goes with the
territory. As long as you can make up some of your losses, I’m sure
you’ll be fine.”
As long as you can make
up some of your losses. He
made it sound so easy.
But it wasn’t.
Anyone who’d ever invested a dime in the stock market could tell her
that. “Well, um, I guess I should really be going!” Miranda stood up,
looking right and left for a wastebasket where she could toss her empty
espresso cup.
“I’ll take that,” the tall
man said, standing up. He reached for the empty, and their hands touched
again. Miranda felt a bolt of lightning streak right through her body as
his skin grazed hers. She’d never felt these kinds of sensations before.
Not with Paul. Not even with her old college boyfriend Bradley--the man to whom
she’d given her precious virginity. Not with anyone.
The entire lower half of
Miranda’s body was in flames.
Her nipples had gone
rock-hard, and the space between her thighs was slick as melted butter.
Her head throbbed, and her lips, teeth, and tongue screamed for the feel of his
mouth on hers.
What the hell was going
on?
Miranda felt her cheeks
flush. How could this be happening? She was a prim, proper, and
very strait-laced woman. She didn’t go throwing herself with wild abandon
at total strangers--let alone total strangers she’d met while on what was
supposed to be a five-minute coffee break from work. And yet, her body
was telling her that throwing herself at this nameless man with wild abandon
wasexactly what she had to do, right now, just to stay
alive, just to keep breathing.
Without giving the
matter another thought, Miranda leaned forward and kissed the tall, generous,
anonymous man’s lips. And it wasn’t just any kiss, either. It was a
grab-his-ass, stick-her-tongue-halfway-down-his-throat kind of kiss.
It was a kind of kiss
Miranda hadn’t known she was capable of giving anyone--let alone a man she’d
met less than ten minutes ago, a man whose name she still didn’t know.
A man who was kissing her
back with as much gusto as she was kissing him.
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