The Last Eligible Billionaire

Reading a Pippa Grant book is like being wrapped in your favorite blanket wearing your most comfortable slippers and riding the biggest roller coaster ever in the dark. It’s comforting and familiar, you have absolutely no idea where this crazy ride will take you, but you know it will be exhilarating, euphoric, and you'll laugh your fool head off.Hayes Rutherford, heir to the Razzle Dazzle movie empire (think Hallmark on steroids), just wants to escape to his Maine beach house, decompress, and sleep for about three days. Except there's a small woman with, is that magenta? hair, singing (badly) at the top of her lungs in his bathroom. And her dog, Marshmallow. Did I mention Hayes is allergic to dogs?Begonia Fairchild just wants a couple of weeks to regroup after her divorce and find the part of herself she knows is still worthy (fallout complements of a weasely ex) before returning to her job as a high school art teacher at the end of the summer. She should have known the cheap rental price on the lavish beach house was too good to be true. And now its owner wants to coerce her into being his fake girlfriend to get his family and the entire population of gold-digging divas off his back. Last eligible billionaire and all that.This is a pretty classic Pippa setup. Grumpy, grouchy, cold-hearted hero meets sweet, genuine, sunny, heart-of-gold heroine and sparks fly. Yet somehow, both Hayes and Begonia are larger than life, complex, and eternally endearing, and they absconded with my heart in the first few chapters. I’ve fallen completely nose over toes with all these characters and I’m not ready to say goodbye. I want more!And that adorable troublemaker, Marshmallow, well he definitely deserves his own paragraph. One of the things Grant does amazingly well is secondary characters of the four-legged variety, and delightful Marshmallow is a laugh a minute. A trained service dog who flunked out because he'd rather do something because he wants to and not because it helps his human – opening doors, stealing clothes, making private, ahem, objects public at the most inopportune times -- let's just say this precocious pup could teach our pal George Cooney a thing or two.If you’re looking for a romance that refuses to take itself too seriously, one that should carry a warning about reading it in public (blushing, snorting, etc., definitely ensue), and one that is laugh-till-you-cry hilarious but is still tender, poignant, and overflowing with heart, you'll love everything about Hayes and Begonia's romance. Your sides will hurt from laughing, your heart will happy sigh, and it will be one of your very favorite reading escapes ever, so make sure you don’t miss it.

There was something missing for me, but this has all of the ingredients of a GREAT book - Grant's signature quirky humor, an unexpected pairing, a fake relationship scheme that quickly gets out of control, and a coldhearted billionaire who finally meets his match. I wanted to love it so hard, and I did enjoy it quite a bit. I loved the outlandishness and the comedy aspect, and I'm always a sucker for a fake relationship romance. The opposites attract dynamic also worked, and it's easy to get caught up in the story. For me, I was distracted at the start by the many characters - while this says it's a total standalone, I kept trying to remember if I'd heard names before in past Grant romances - and then somewhere along the way the emotional connection started to feel a little lacking. I still enjoyed this (I'm a huge fan of Grant's work for a reason), it was just easier to put down than others I've read.The story follows Begonia and Hayes, two strangers who meet in the most memorable of ways. Begonia is on a post-divorce vacation and minding her own business in her rental property when Hayes enters and claims that he's the owner of the building... and he didn't rent it out. After their initial encounter spirals out of control, Hayes finds himself blackmailing Begonia to be his fake girlfriend. As the last eligible billionaire, everyone is obsessed with Hayes' love life - and he's been burned too many times before to want something real. Claiming that this hot mess of a woman is his girlfriend is sure to get his family to stop meddling, but things don't go as planned. As the two spend time together, Hayes and Begonia strike up a friendship that feels like more. Whether it's friends with benefits or something real is yet to be determined.I've never been a fan of friends with benefits, so that's where this started to go off course for me. At one point, Begonia literally says (in reference to a potential hookup between them), “You don’t have to kiss me, you don’t have to look at me, we don’t have to have the lights on, and we can keep touching to a minimum," and I think my love of the book sort of curled up and died in that moment, lol. Not completely, but it definitely put a damper on things for me. Everything else about the book is 5-star-worthy, but the lackluster emotional connection and Begonia's self-esteem issues kept me from loving the book. We see a lot of resistance from both characters to fall for real, even if it was happening against their will. I did love Hayes though; it was great to see this unfeeling guy fall for someone so bold and vibrant. Opposites definitely attract in this case, and they balance each other out perfectly. Overall, not one of my favorites from the author, but still a very solid rom com.