Egomaniac by Vi Keeland
Publication Date: January 17, 2017
Contemporary Romance
Everafter Romance

Reviewed by Kini

The night I met Drew Jagger, he’d just broken into my new Park Avenue office.
I dialed 9-1-1 before proceeding to attack him with my fancy new Krav Maga skills.
He quickly restrained me, then chuckled, finding my attempted assault amusing.

Of course, my intruder had to be arrogant.
Only, turned out, he wasn’t an intruder at all.

Drew was the rightful occupant of my new office. He’d been on vacation while his posh space was renovated.
Which was how a scammer got away with leasing me office space that wasn’t really available for rent.
I was swindled out of ten grand.

The next day, after hours at the police station, Drew took pity on me and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. In exchange for answering his phones while his secretary was out, he’d let me stay until I found a new place.
I probably should have acted grateful and kept my mouth shut when I overheard the advice he was spewing to his clients. But I couldn’t help giving him a piece of my mind.
I never expected my body to react every time we argued. Especially when that was all we seemed to be able to do.

The two of us were complete opposites. Drew was a bitter, angry, gorgeous-as-all-hell, destroyer of relationships. And my job was to help people save their marriages.
The only thing the two of us had in common was the space we were sharing.
And an attraction that was getting harder to deny by the day.

I’ve never read this author before. I’ve seen her books floating around but never picked one up. I think I was worried it would be over the top or have an alphahole hero that I didn’t like. I was wrong and a little mad at myself for waiting this long to try her out, because now I am going to have to go back to her extensive back list.

Their meet cute is so ridiculous. While Drew is away on vacation, Emerie was conned into renting his office space. He walks in and she’s startled and hilarity ensues. She ends up flashing him because her skirt rips, obviously he falls a tiny bit in love with her right then. He could have been a downright jerk to her, but is actually very kind about the whole thing mixup and ends up sharing that space with her.

Drew is a jaded divorce attorney. Emerie is a psychologist specializing in marriage counseling. He thinks divorce is usually the best option. She’s rainbows and sunshine and thinks all problems can be fixed. They clearly have a difference of opinions. Keeland could have easily made their banter and relationship antagonistic, but she didn’t and I loved it. I love a good enemies to lovers trope, but I think this book worked great as a strangers/friends to lovers.

The back and forth between Drew and Emerie was fun and sexy. This is a moderately slow burning story while the author builds the tension with them. It really worked for me. Drew has a hard time respecting some boundaries at work, he listens to her conversations, writes on her white board, but doesn’t ignore her boundaries in a way that made me uncomfortable. At one point Emerie is having issues sleeping, Drew has helpful advice for her.

“Prolactin then.
Prolactin? What’s that? A vitamin or something? It’s a hormone you release after orgasm, Makes you sleepy. Have you tried masturbating right before bed?”

The whole conversation throws Emerie off guard and helps her to realize her budding attraction to him. Later in the same conversation he declares,

“I’m like a superhero. The Prolactinator.”

Once they do finally get to having sex, it was pretty hot. Naturally, Drew has a ginormous peen and is a dirty talker.

“Oh my God. Drew’s penis was so wide and long it looked like he was carrying a whiffle ball bat. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been staring until Drew chuckled. “Stop looking at it like that, or I’m not going to be polite and you take it a little at a time when you’re sucking it in a little while.” God, he’s so crass. God, I want to suck that thing.”

Drew and Emerie both have previous relationships that are holding them back. Emerie’s is a colleague that seems to be aware she likes him. Drew has an ex that is kind of the worst. He’s jaded about love because of his ex and his chosen line of work. But once he falls, he falls hard. I loved it.

“Emerie walked to the door of my office, and all I wanted to do was take back the last five minutes- rewind time and tell her I didn’t just want to be her teammate, I wanted to be her whole fucking team.”

As they get over their respective issues and decide they want to be together it was enough for me to overlook some of the things I didn’t like. The conflict that pulled them apart was a tiny bit contrived and I felt like could have and should have resolved way sooner. Drew’s previous relationship was told in flashbacks and I felt like the timing was off slightly. Yet none of these things took away from how much I enjoyed this story. If you enjoyed Emma Chase’s Legal Briefs series, I think you will enjoy this book.

Grade: B

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