Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: The CEO’s Christmas Manny
SERIES: Beyond the Boardroom (book #1)/Dreamspun Desires (#72)
AUTHOR: Angela McCallister
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 222 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 18, 2018
BLURB:
Anything but business as usual.
Billionaire CEO Nic Price lives for his job. With sales down and grumbling from the board of directors—including Nic’s permanently dissatisfied father—the last thing Nic needs is distraction from the new manny, whose freewheeling approach to childcare is outlandish… and who makes Nic feel things he’s never allowed himself to feel.
Ex-teacher Sasha Lindsey is all about fun—that’s the reason people love him, so he has to be. After a bad break-up leaves him jobless and homeless, the live-in manny job with Mr. Price seems like a windfall. But his chemistry with Nic is off the charts, and he can’t afford another workplace romance disaster.
Can Nic leave his dominance in the bedroom and open his heart to the best thing that’s ever happened to him? Or will Sasha’s leap of faith backfire and ruin his chances at the family happily ever after he’s always dreamed of?
REVIEW:
What could be more exciting than netting the man of your dreams…he’s gorgeous, über rich and you now live in his house? It would be all great except that Sasha has had a string of bad relationships through his work that have cost him dearly and he really, really needs this job. Besides, he can’t let anything get in the way with his budding relationship with his two charges, 16 year-old Lucy and her 12 year-old brother Ben. They have been a handful for the past nanny/caregivers since they were left with their Uncle Nic after their parents died four years ago. But Sasha see through their attitudes and antics and straight to the heart of the matter, they desperately need some much needed love and attention. The problem is that their Uncle Nic is a workaholic who is still trying to please his overbearing and judgmental parents and has little time for other things in life. That is until he gets to know his niece and nephew’s new manny. The man is drop dead gorgeous and just Nic’s type but Nic has a hard-fast rule, “‘don’t shit where you eat’ philosophy. He doesn’t date business associates or employees.” But the more he is around the golden Adonis the harder it is to stick to his self-imposed rule!
I fell for Sasha the moment I started reading about him. He has always been the rock, the one who everyone could depend on to be solid and always have a smile on his face! Unfortunately that smile wasn’t always a real one but he had gotten good at masking his feelings. He learned at a young age to be good and not a bother because his parents didn’t do “problems”. No, they just left them for him to fix! And that “be perfect and happy always, with no needs or problems” façade carried on in his relationships. No one wants someone who is needy. They just want the happy and fun Sasha, no matter how he was feeling inside. I think it is how and why he can always spot a problem arising and fix it so quickly. But that constant being “on” leaves Sasha a shell of a person. But that is also what Nic was too. He was always attempting to do exactly what his parents demanded. And being those people is exhausting! Because, if you are always running yourself ragged fixing or doing what everyone else wants or needs, it leaves no time to take care of yourself and what your wants and needs are. And that will eventually lead to most certain disaster. If you look closely you will realized, aside from the financial levels, these men were raised very much alike. Their very selfish parents were all about their needs and desires, at the expense of their sons. Yes Nic’s parents left him very secure financially but their demands had become a burden that couldn’t withstand time.
To be truthful, I wasn’t sure I was liking this book at first. It was moving a bit slowly and I was irritated with Nic’s lack of showing love for his niece and nephew. I could see that they were acting up for attention but, to be truthful, Nic lacked the foundation and building blocks to raise the children. His parents had shipped him off to boarding school when he was young. Now he was raising their grandchildren but they kept placing burden after burden on him instead of helping him. I think I loathed them even more than I despised Sasha’s good for nothing, free-loading parents! When Nic finally melted a bit, under Sasha’s care, I began to get captivated by the story. By the end I was disappointed that we didn’t get more. Then I found out that this is the first in a series. I am hoping that we get to see how Nic and Sasha progress with their new lives and, hopefully Percy, Nic’s best friend and business associate (personal assistant just doesn’t work for me with Percy) get his HEA too because he deserves it.
I am looking forward to the next in this series and I hope that you are too!
RATING: 
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