USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday’s hilarious prequel to her acclaimed Bridesmaids Behaving Badly series!

Jay Smith likes to be in control. His every choice, every move, is made with his carefully planned future in mind. Sure, some people think that’s boring. But Jay knows who he is, and he makes no apologies for it. So when the lobby in his accounting firm needs a makeover, Jay takes charge—and quickly determines he needs a designer. What he does not need is a woman who tempts him to break all his long-held rules.

Elise Maxwell needs this job. After cutting off her overbearing, old-money family, she’s determined to establish a successful design business—all on her own. Independent for the first time in her life, Elise isn’t looking for a boyfriend. She certainly doesn’t want someone telling her what to do.

Until she meets Jay…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Most of the time when guys did not look like their picture, it went in the opposite direction. Like when a guy’s Tinder profile showed him shirtless holding up a fish and you thought, Well, maybe I can excuse the stupid fish because look at those arms! … But then you met him in person, and it turned out that those arms were from six years and two gym memberships ago.

That was another cool thing about Jay. He could shift so effortlessly between filthy and funny.

In keeping with the animal metaphor, he felt like some kind of primitive ape beating its chest, pointing at his mate and claiming her. Mine.

She suspected he could do more for her with the crook of a finger than other men could with their full arsenals.

My Review:

I am as infatuated with this cleverly amusing, smartly written, and sexy series as well as the enticing and endearing characters that inhabit it. This delightfully entertaining novella was a quick and easy read, laced with witty levity, irreverent humor, and insightful and perceptive observations.   I enjoyed uncovering the beginnings of Jay and Elise, as their story provides the foundation for the rest of the series being that Elise is the bride and her friends are the badly behaving bridesmaids. Elise and Jay’s attraction was immediate, primal, and inconvenient; yet quickly developed from a working relationship into an easy friendship and although each was yearning for considerably more, Jay kept the brakes engaged until their project was complete. The holding pattern was leaning towards an extended and agonizing tease and weakening his resolve, but well worth the frustration as their sexual chemistry went nuclear once detonated.