This is the first billionaire romance I’ve read by Vivian Wood, and
it won’t be the last. Vivian Wood writes about flawed alpha
males and troubled women who captivate them, and she delivers that dynamic well in this billionaire-ballerina romance. 

Let’s meet Calum Fordham, a billionaire, former
ballet dancer, and the owner of Indica Tech and Indica Charities. He is
ruggedly handsome, sometimes ruthless, but undeniably smitten with Kaia Walker,
a struggling ballet dancer with dreams of dancing for the New York Ballet. To
make ends meet and pay back her father’s debt ($200,000) for her ballet academy
training, she moonlights as Cerise at Club X, a strip club. 

As a stripper, Kaia is confident and poised,
but shudders when her father criticizes her and leaves hate filled voicemails. She
also struggles to defend herself at the ballet academy against mean-spirited ballerinas
like Manon. Thankfully, her ballerina friends Eric and Ella stand up for her. Anyway,
Kaia is thrilled when Calum offers to be her patron, but things take an unexpected
turn when Calum is asked to stage manage a production of Sleeping Beauty
and finds Kaia auditioning for a role. 

After the initial shock of seeing each other
at rehearsals, Calum and Kaia carefully navigate their arrangement: he wines
and dines her, gives her explicit instructions on where to meet him, what to
wear, and how to act around him. Everything seems to be going well until Honor,
a ballerina Calum has been lusting after threatens to expose his relationship with
Kaia, complicating his role as the show’s producer and Kaia’s part in it. To make
matters worse, Kaia’ father tries to strangle her during a dress rehearsal when
she refuses to help him out of his debt with the mob. 

Overall, this is a fast-paced and steamy
read.  The characters are flawed but well-developed.
The ballet elements are done really well, the dialogue is realistic, and the
sex scenes are sizzling. Calum and Kaia’s backstories add depth to their
characters, revealing their brokenness. However, the twists at the end will leave
readers yearning for the next installment. 

Two thumbs up! Great read! 

Rating: 4 stars 

Some of my
favorite lines: 

I pause.
“A patron?”

She looks
at me with a sigh. “Yes. A patron. Someone that will pay for my services.
Someone with a fat wallet that will take me out of here.”

I bite my
lip. “Pay for you to strip privately, you mean?”

She huffs
out a laugh. “No, honey. Any man can get that here for a few hundred dollars. A
patron gets you any way he wants it, as often as he feels like it. In exchange,
he pays for an apartment, a car service, all the fancy clothes you could want…”
She looks at herself in the mirror, leaning close to examine her reflection.
“I’ve heard that a few girls even married their patrons.

Originally Published on https://vocalexpressions.blogspot.com

Deliah Lawrence Attorney, Author, Blogger, Workshop Facilitator

Deliah Lawrence is a Maryland-based attorney and award-winning author of two romantic suspense novels (Gotta Let It Go and Gotta Get It Back) set in Baltimore. She’s also a blogger and workshop facilitator who writes poetry and short stories.

When Deliah isn’t writing, you can find her reading a book, indulging in her addiction to investigation discovery shows; or painting her yet-to-be exhibited oil artworks of landscapes, portraits or whatever else comes to her creative mind. Constantly on the go, she is also a member of the Black Writers’ Guild of Maryland and Sisters in Crime.