Title: Bodyguard Reunion
Author: Beverly Long
Mills & Boon imprint: Romantic Suspense
Year of publication: 2017
The heroine: Pharmaceutical CEO Juliana Cambridge
The hero: Former Air Force/Security expert Royce Morgan
The blurb: Security expert Royce Morgan has fought like hell to change his ways. Since Jules Cambridge left him and married someone else eight years ago, he’s not the man he once was. But he casts the past aside once death threats propel Jules back into his life again, this time in need of his protection.
In Las Vegas for a conference–and on a quest to untangle the chilling secrets in her mother’s diary–Jules might not make it out of Sin City alive. Every step toward the truth brings her closer to danger. And every moment with Royce brings back passion that could destroy or save their future.
Standalone or series: Book one of the Wingman Security series, but can be read as a standalone
The review: Juliana Cambridge – known as Jules to Royce and JC to everyone else – was in love with Royce Morgan eight years before the book begins, but her rich, interfering father made Royce feel he would never be good enough for his daughter and, coupled with an enormous lie he told Jules, made sure she married another man instead.
When Jules gets threatening letters, the board of the pharmaceutical company she is CEO of insists she gets a bodyguard. In Las Vegas for an important conference, they hire Wingman Security. Royce is assigned the case, not realising who it is he’ll be protecting. They’re both shocked to see each other again, and Royce even more so when he finds out that Jules has been divorced for six years.
Jules has another reason for wanting to be in Vegas; she found out recently that her father sired a child with another woman, something her mother had discovered several months before her death in a car accident when Jules was fourteen. Being an only child, she wants to meet her half-sister.
A few attempts are made on Jules’s life and there’s a whole sub-plot involving the sister which I found dragged a bit. The sister goes to stay with Jules at her hotel and brings her cat, and then when the sister is kidnapped, the cat suddenly disappears from the story, never to be seen again. Jules is also taken, and when her father arrives in Vegas a secret he’s been hiding comes out. I won’t reveal what it is, but I was surprised.
By this stage, Royce and Jules have slept together and he’s determined to get her back safely because he’s not letting her go a second time. They’d cleared the air about why he walked away eight years ago and found they’d both had misconceptions about the other because of her father. Royce tracks the missing sisters down, you find out who’s behind the threatening letters, and Jules finally marries the right guy. I love a happy ending! I’m also loving that cover.
The one thing I did find annoying was the constant going back and forth with Jules and her name. In the scenes from Royce’s POV, she was Jules. In hers, she was JC. I wish the author had just picked one name and stuck to it, because it really took me out of the story in some parts with the constant name change.
the romance shelf 