Scandalous, the highly anticipated next standalone in the Sinners of Saint Series by LJ Shen is available NOW!
Scandalous by LJ Shen
Publishing Date: September 29th, 2017
Genre: Contemporary Romance
They call him The Mute for a reason.
Hard, cold and calculated, he rarely speaks.
When he does, it’s with disdain.
When he does, his words aren’t meant for me.
When he does, my stomach flips and my world tilts on its axis.
He is thirty-three.
I am eighteen.
He’s a single dad and my father’s business partner.
I’m just a kid to him and his enemy’s daughter.
He’s emotionally unavailable.
And I am…feeling. Feeling things I shouldn’t feel for him.
Trent Rexroth is going to break my heart. The writing isn’t just on the wall, it’s inked on my soul.
And yet, I can’t stay away.
A scandal is the last thing my family needs. But a scandal is what we’re going to give them.
And oh, what a beautiful chaos it will be.
4.5 stars
Review by Lisa Kane
“If you want to be stong, be.”
Trent Rexroth is known as The Mute. He’s a man of few words.
That’s why I’m The Mute. When you don’t talk, people assume you don’t listen.
There was a time when he was loved a good time like his business partners, Vicious, Dean and Jamie, but things have changed. While being coked up at a bachelor party, he knocked had unprotected sex and knocked up a stripper Val. She took off a few years ago and he is raising his daughter Luna on his own.
Three years ago Luna’s mother, Val, had put Luna in her rib, grabbed her keys and two large suitcases, and disappeared from our lives.
Luna, for some unknown reason, refuses to speak. She can talk, she just won’t. Hers is a world of self-imposed isolation. Trent just might be banging her therapist, Sonya on a regular basis.
How I’d become a thirty-three-year-old single dad who didn’t have time, nor the patience, for any female other than his kid.
Edie is the eighteen-year-old daughter of Jordan Van Der Zee. He has just become the new business partner for Fiscal Heights Holdings, the company Trent incorporated with his high school friends. She is gorgeous and a little crazy and is the first woman that Trent has shown any interest in since getting burned by Val. But she’s forbidden fruit for so many reasons. Her age and her father being the biggest deterrents. At first glance, they could not be more different –he has fifteen years on her and she is milk white. Trent is the biracial product of a white mother and a black father. Trent’s not crossing any lines. He has enough on his plate trying to stay ahead of Jordan.
Because sneaky, shady people always end up losing the fight, even if they did win the small battles.
Jordan Van Der Zee is a monster. His obsession for money has corrupted his black soul. He has disdain for any one he thinks is no use for him-especially his wife and daughter. But he does have something he hangs over Edie’s head and he pulls her strings like a puppet. She has always had to shoulder the responsibility of her family; surfing is her outlet. It’s the only time she’s ever really free to be herself.
I was six when I first realized there was something seriously wrong with my father.
It’s Edie’s job to steal something from Trent that her father wants. She makes no secret about it to Trent. They are adversaries who want each other, but shouldn’t.
“It means”-his teeth dragged along my neck-“that what we are to each other is potential sacrifices. As long as you know I will throw you under the train if you mess with my plans, I’m good.”
I swallowed. “I’m good, too.”
“Let’s have some fun then.”
Both admit to themselves that they are in over their heads. They might try and tell themselves, they are controlling their actions-but they aren’t fooling anyone.
“And please, before you say anything, never underestimate a broken person. We’re unpredictable, because once you’re broken-what’s one more crack?”
Scandalous is one more delicious treat in this series. It has a ton of undercurrents-my head would be spinning at all the deception going on-and the chemistry between Trent and Edie is enough to set your Kindle on fire!
I’m his tide, and he’s my anchor. Or maybe the sand itself.
Excerpt:
Trent’s gaze cut to mine and stopped when his grays met my blues. The fading noise of Vicious barking at people to move along, and my father finally letting go of my arm to move toward Jaime and Dean—probably trying to gain both allies and sympathy—died down.
“I don’t like you,” Rexroth whispered under his breath, his voice harsh.
“I never asked you to.” I shrugged.
“You won’t be working here.” His arm brushed my shoulder, but I didn’t think it was by accident. I let loose a sugary smile, scanning his face and torso for no other reason other than to taunt him. “Good, you’ll be doing me a favor. My father is the one forcing me to work here. He’s pissed I turned down five Ivy League colleges. Remind me, Mr. Rexroth—which top tier university did you attend for your degree?”
The low blow was supposed to retrieve some of my lost dignity, but bile burned my throat, shotgunned from my stomach. Trent Rexroth was known in Todos Santos as an exhilarating success story, rising from the gutters of San Diego. He went to a shitty state college that accepted even the illiterate, working as a janitor on campus after hours. Those were given facts he’d recited himself in an interview for Forbes.
Had I really just tried to make him feel less worthy because he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth? It made me sicker than wearing my mother’s designer garbs.
Trent smiled, leaning into my body, into my soul. His smirk was more frightening than any scowl, frown, or grimace I’d ever seen. It threatened to tear me apart and sew me back together however he pleased.
“Edie.” His lips were dangerously close to my ear. A delicious shiver moved down my spine. Something warm rolled inside of me, begging to unknot and flower into an orgasm. What was happening, and why the hell was it happening? “If you know what’s best for you, you will turn around and leave right now.”
I elevated my head to meet his gaze and showed him my version of a grin. I was born and raised in a world of intimidating rich men, and I’d be damned if I go down like my mother—addicted to xanax, Gucci, and a man who paraded her on his arm for a short, glorious decade before keeping her solely for public appearances.
“I think I’m going to go find my desk now. I’d wish you a good day, Mr. Rexroth, but I think that ship has sailed. You’re a miserable man. Oh, and one for the road.” I fished for a Nature Valley bar in my mother’s purse and plastered it to his hard, muscled chest. My heart slammed into my neck, fluttering like a caged bird.
I hurried after my father as he glided down the vast, golden-hued hallway, not daring to look back. Knowing I’d started a war and arrived unequipped. But I also knew something else that gave me a surfer’s rush—if I could slam the final nail in my employment coffin and make Rexroth vote against me, I’d be off the hook.
I had just the plan for it. All I had to do was act like a brat. Game on.
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About LJ Shen:
L.J. Shen is an International #1 best-selling author of Contemporary Romance and New Adult novels. She lives in Northern California with her husband, young son and chubby cat.
Before she’d settled down, L.J. (who thinks referring to herself in the third person is really silly, by the way) traveled the world, and collected friends from all across the globe. Friends who’d be happy to report that she is a rubbish companion, always forgets peoples’ birthdays and never sends Christmas cards.
She enjoys the simple things in life, like spending time with her family and friends, reading, HBO, Netflix and internet-stalking Stephen James. She reads between three to five books a week and firmly believes Crocs shoes and mullets should be outlawed.
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