Title: The Boss
Author: Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year: Hartwick Publishing 3/23/21
Length: 290 Pages
Series: The Chateau #3
Overview
It’s complicated.
Am I allowed to say that?
Am I allowed to use that as an excuse to feel something toward the man that runs this place, is the reason I’m here in the first place, as well as my sister Raven?
They call him The Boss. I call him Fender.
And he calls me Beautiful.
I can tell myself I’m just using him to get what I want.
But we both know that’s not true.
My Thoughts
The first two installments of this series were about Magnus and Raven – we watched how the actions on an ill-fated night by Melanie ended up getting them captured and sent to a camp to help a drug lord. We watched Raven’s never ending quest for freedom, and Melanie’s guilt for getting the captured, how she follows Raven where ever she goes, but at the same time we watched how the Boss – Fender took a liking to Melanie, and this is what we get in the second half of the series.
Where this third installment picks up is the first time that Fender sets his eyes on Melanie at the camp. He’s been snared by her beauty – and even though he’s always surrounded himself with beautiful women, there’s something about Melanie that soars above and beyond. He wants to give her comforts at camp that he’s never given to any other woman that was brought there. He wants to take care of her and wants to ‘own’ her in a sense, but he won’t do it unless she’s willing. so we spend much of the front half of this story watching how this slowly begins to happen.
Melanie on the other hand is stuck in this limbo of truly doing what’s right given the situation, and yet fighting what her body is telling her. She’s afraid of him, yet Fender continues to remind her that he won’t hurt her or force her to do anything. She wants to get her freedom back and she more than anything wants Raven’s freedom. If only her sister didn’t constantly cause trouble….maybe that would be possible.
Over time we watch the relationship develop between Melanie and Fender. There’s still.a significant gray area around what they are and what they can be, but we see that there’s something that’s starting to grow here. Fender continues to share nothing about himself, and broods and is angry all the time, yet Melanie has patience.
Fender takes her back to Paris with him when he leaves camp, and makes it clear that Melanie is his – that she’s not going to go free, but she will have the life that she deserves. We watch the transformation come over Melanie once she’s under the guidance and care of Fender’s household. We see the role that Fender’s butler plays – both with Melanie and with Fender since the relationships there are so complicated.
If you’ll remember from the first two books, there’s the drive and need for Fender to amass more. to be the biggest and the best distributor and he’ll stop at nothing. Magnus was the voice of reason throughout those first two books, but we saw that it didn’t matter. Now we’re getting the chance to see how that played out from the other side, knowing that Fender was stubborn and that nothing good could come out of what he’s trying to do .
If you’ll also remember from the first two books, Magnus managed to help Raven escape the camp and brought her back to Paris. They also went to Fender and asked for Melanie’s release. Fender didn’t think that Mel would actually go, so he allowed it and that’s where we ended this first book of Fender/Melanie’s story. We see what was starting to be an intense romantic relationship come to a crashing halt – and we can only imagine the implications that will result knowing that Fender doesn’t take well to people who lie to him, cross him and take things that he deems to be his. I can’t wait for the next installment to come along since I really need to see how this plays out from a different angle. Enjoy!