The recent insights into the lack of importance of location in bad romance literature left us eagerly eyeing the kinds of appalling titles Mills & Boon remains notorious for. Cold and calculating billionaires ruthlessly blackmailing subservient virgins into their billionaire beds for passionate payments of a different kind, with italics added in all the right places. Bewildered Heart's attempts at examining the Romance market have so far over-looked this most popular subgenre, and we have not yet had the chance to read a novel with a ridiculous title and openly sexist blurb, if you ignore The Playboy at Pengarroth Hall and One Night with the Rebel Billionaire, both of which had deeply misleading titles.
We wanted something obviously dramatic and clearly involving enforced sex as blackmail recompense, because sometimes Bewildered Heart drinks. How about titles such as Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby, or Ruthlessly Bedded by the Italian Billionaire (Ruthless!), or Bought For Revenge, Bedded For Pleasure, or The Billionaire's Captive Bride, or The Playboy Boss's Chosen Bride? Not only are those all real titles, but they were all authored by Emma Darcy, Romance Writer, and her latest is The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress. Would the apparent implication of cleaning and light dusting detract from the more compelling narrative issues of extravagant wealth and rape? Well, there was only one way to find out and that way was the most unappetizing, for it involved sheepishly heading into a library and then sheepishly reading The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress. Now the customarily opinion-forming three chapters in allow us to ruin the opening three chapters for you, gentle reader.
Our heroine is Daisy Donohue, the plain-looking, drab PA to PR queen Lynda Twiggley. Despite being plain-looking and drab Daisy is spectacularly beautiful, with big brown eyes, full feminine breasts, pert bottom, silky brown hair and flawless skin with a peaches and cream vivacity. Our hero is the ruthless billionaire Ethan Cartwright, him with the thick black hair, emerald green eyes, sexy physique, masculine face and Brad Pitt eyebrows. Financier and Australian version of Wall Street whiz-kid Ethan foresaw the economic downturn that is all the rage right now and saved his many clients from bankruptcy. He has billions of Australian dollars to ruthlessly lavish on whatever he pleases and hangs out with his good friend named Mickey Bourke. Meanwhile, poor Daisy- Sorry. Mickey Bourke? Really? That's the name for the social-climbing horse-racing expert best friend? Let's pretend that's not a thing, shall we?
Daisy's parents lost everything in the recession and Daisy must keep her soul-destroying job working for a tyrannical monster to pay the bills so her parents don't lose their house. High stakes and possible character motivation! Eep! With so many people unable to make ends meet Daisy can't stand seeing wealthy people indulging their gluttonous lifestyles. If only her career didn't involve indulging the gluttonous lifestyles of wealthy people. Ethan has a new racehorse racing at the first racing event of the new racing season, a gala Lynda Twiggley is organising. Twiggley is hoping Ethan will work his magic on her business portfolio, but all that interests Ethan is Twiggley's assistant. Daisy is nothing like all the Victoria's Secret lingerie models in the big tent. No, Ethan is tired of such photoshopped beauties and ruthlessly yearns for something more substantial, a real conversation with a woman who seems to obviously despise him and everything he represents. It's all about the chase, right, fellas? That's the trouble with Victoria's Secret models, too attainable.
Ethan had a disastrous engagement to a socialite named Serena, and ruthlessly broke it off when he heard her proudly mentioning to a friend that she was engaged. Ugh, he thought, perhaps idiotically. He doesn't want a woman who loves him and loves being married to him. He wants that girl, the one staring at him with eyes of seething fury and he will ruthlessly stop at nothing to get her, because he is a ruthless billionaire who always gets who and what he wants, often without any sign of ruth. During a quiet spell in the racing festivities Ethan grabs hold of Daisy's arm and refuses to let go until she has confessed why she hates him so much. Their intimate moment of barely concealed resentment is interrupted, however, by Lynda, who wants Ethan all for herself. Ethan interjects, upset at how cruelly Daisy is being treated. Lynda is upset at being revealed as a tyrannical monster and Daisy doesn't stand up for herself, because Ethan is so gorgeous. No sooner have we realised that this is a heavy-handed and poorly-written plot contrivance has Lynda fired Daisy for breach of their confidentiality agreement and Daisy has fainted, because she's a fragile, tiny woman.
Ethan is stunned, but astutely uses Daisy's unconsciousness to sate his manly, ruthless desires. Before he can store her in the boot of his limousine, however, she stirs awake to the dispiriting epiphany that she has been rendered unemployed in a hopeless job market, her parents face foreclosure on their house and the mightily attractive billionaire Ethan Cartwright is responsible and still has her hat. Such dire circumstances call for desperate measures, but before Daisy need act Ethan steps in, offering her a job in one of his new houses in Sydney's wealthiest suburb, Hunters Hill, running the renovating efforts under the dolled-up title of Executive Housekeeper. Whoo! Suddenly the Mills & Boon creative team's choice of title makes perfect sense, and we know the mistress part will work out because we already assume these two are going to have a lot of sex and relationship-name-based misunderstandings. That brings to a close the end of Chapter Three and the adventure is afoot. Can two people who find each other sexually attractive and have nothing stopping them from falling in love fall in love? It seems unlikely at this point, especially considering Ethan's attitude of fiscal conservatism and Daisy's destitution. Still, one man is rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but has no innocent, demure woman to ruthlessly force into his bed, and one innocent, demure woman really needs money. With that set-up there is a chance for a form of romance so long as while Ethan is conservative on the matter of economics he is a little more liberal on the subject of prostitution.
Emma Darcy's Modern Romance is pointed in remarking how unlike a sheikh Ethan is. He is closer, Daisy notes, to a feudal lord. Ethan wants to be a feudal lord where Daisy is concerned, but this is not the Dark Ages, despite Daisy's protestations that it actually is the Dark Ages. She's misguided, of course, because if it were the Dark Ages the book would have a different colour cover. In the modern world of the Australian billionaire party circuit feudal lords are now called financiers, and servant girls are now called personal assistants. Caves have become hotel suites and jousting has become horse racing. No one would believe men dragged women back to their caves in the Dark Ages, but a metaphor is an easy thing to lose sight of.
The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress is classic Mills & Boon escapist Modern Romance with a resolution so obvious the one hundred and fifty pages between here and the end insult the reader. But hey, we understood that going in. For now we must concern ourselves with the discovery of ruthless billionaire mating techniques. After all, Ethan's honourable behaviour thus far is not in-keeping with his reputation of ruthless inhumanity. So far, in fact, it appears he is a genuinely decent chap who is sensitive to the needs of others, uses his money for good and dislikes displays of indulgence. He also happens to have no financial problems. Well, we can be sure he will pay for his misdeeds with a lifetime of happiness and sex with the woman of his dreams, teaching people everywhere one must be ruthless to succeed. And handsome and a billionaire. It's probably more important to be a handsome billionaire.
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