Title: Buttons & Hate
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Dark Romance
What's It About: Pearl ('Button') cannot believe how much Jacob had betrayed her--selling her off to be trafficked for $100K to pay off his debt. She wallows and pities herself, until Crow barges into her room and tells her to cut the crap, and that Jacob isn't worth her time. The next day she is more herself, realizing that she doesn't have anywhere to go, or a reason to return back to New York. She makes a deal with Crow at dinner--she wants to pay him buttons to do things with her and he accepts her deal, wanting to keep her around longer.
Her first payment is buttons for a date with Crow, who takes her out to a restaurant, and they make small talk, where Crow finds out about Pearl's first boyfriend--Jason--someone that she had dated during her first two years of college, and with whom she parted on good terms when he went to work on the other side of the country. This pisses Crow off, but he doesn't let it show on his face. When they return home, she asks him for regular sex and while he's not into "vanilla" sex, he obliges for a couple more buttons.
Not too long after, Crow pays her buttons for completing one of his fantasies, and in return she asks him if he could take her to the beach. He takes her to his mansion by the beach, and they spend a blissful weekend together before returning back to his winery estate, where problems start to pick up with his brother, Cane, who wants Pearl to suffer as a revenge for Bones. Crow manages to hold him off, while at work a former employee who was his submissive in the past attempts to make a move. She even visits him at his house one day, and Pearl sees her kiss him, getting enraged that he would see another woman while he's with her.
Cane tries to get Crow to hand over the girl to Bones, in exchange for $40 Million, but Crow denies it. Then one day while Crow has left to his office, Cane breaks in, incapacitates Lars the butler and the rest of the staff, and finds Pearl, who had hidden inside the playroom. She tries to fight him off, but he ends up beating her so hard he cracks her cheek; she's within death's door by the time he's done with her. Crow rushes home as Lars had pressed the panic button, and breaks through the door of his playroom, to find Cane standing over Pearl. He shoots his brother in the arm, picks up Pearl and takes her to the hospital, hoping that Pearl survives--he really cannot take another loss. Her condition is critical, though it's now time to wait to see if she heals and wakes up.
Pearl does wake up and Crow takes her home--Cane having left the hospital earlier too for the gunshot wound--where he puts her in his bedroom to watch over her, and tenderly cares to her, making sure that she sleeps in his arms so that she's safe. In one visit, he goes to Cane and they argue over Pearl with Cane claiming that Crow loves her or something, but Crow denying it. In the end, Crow slugs Cane for messing with Pearl in an eye-for-an-eye. In a separate trip, Crow visits Bones and offers to give him money to leave Pearl alone, but he denies it and tells Crow that he wants the girl back. For Crow, Pearl is off the table and he will not give her up, so he realizes that he needs his brother to help hunt Bones down. So he sets up a meeting with Cane, and Pearl tags along, where the two men debate how to find Bones. Pearl finally suggests that they use her as bait--she will run over to the American Embassy, and Bones will personally want to see her, so he will come. They like that idea, but Pearl needs to heal up.
Slowly, she heals and begins her bedtime activities with Crow. At some point, the police come to visit Crow's estate asking for her, and he gives her the choice to leave with them for good. But Pearl is not ready to do that--she has no one back in America to go back to so she tells him to deny that she's there. Crow speaks to the police, tells them that he knows nothing about this, but agrees to give a statement to his employees to keep an eye out for Pearl. He does ask about the source of this investigation, but the police tell him nothing, which makes him a bit paranoid. Neither he nor Pearl can figure out who could have let the police know where to look for her. Crow does ask Cane about it, but he denies it and asks what he has to do to prove himself, though once again Cane brings up the fact that Crow is in love with Pearl, which Crow denies.
Another day, while Crow is out at work, Cane comes by and visits Pearl alone. Fearing that he's going to try to hurt her again, she grabs the gun from the nightstand and comes downstairs to see him, only for her to be surprised by Cane's actions. He apologizes to her for doing what he's done, and tells her that he just wants revenge for their sister, Vanessa, and since Bones is so into Pearl, they wanted to hurt her to get back at him, but he would've never done it if he realized that Crow was truly in love with Pearl. She doesn't know what to do with this information, though she knows that Vanessa died at the hands of Bones and understands where Cane's desire for revenge is coming from. He tells her that Crow really does love her, even if he doesn't know himself, because he knows his brother.
At one point during sex with Crow, Pearl tells him that she loves him. This causes him to shut down and reject her outright as he believes that he's not capable of love--he goes off into the shower--and when he returns, Pearl is nowhere to be found; she's in her own room. She turns cold towards him, and rejects him back, telling him that she is just here to hold up to the deal, and when he tells her that he misses her in his bedroom, she gives him the same treatment he gave her. Pearl decides to focus on getting the buttons so she can be free to go home, and she makes it to 275 buttons before Crow realizes he only has 90 left. He asks her to ask him for something so he can work some of the buttons back, but she is having none of it.
Then one night, the glass to her window shatters, Pearl is grabbed, tossed out the window and stolen in the night. She is taken to a woman who wields a gun, and is put into a car to be taken to Bones, which she doesn't want to do. So she cuts off her bindings, knocks the woman out, and knocks the driver out, and steals the woman's ID, cards and wallet. Realizing she's close to the airport, she catches the Cab and purchases a ticket to New York.
In the meantime, Crow is frantic with who has stolen her, and calls Cane to come help. He is en-route to intercept Pearl's abductors in Rome, but then loses her signal from the tracker that was implanted into her ankle. He realizes that she's on a flight, when her dot is moving in the direction of the Atlantic, and with pride he cheers on her for getting out of the sticky situation that the kidnapping brought.
My Thoughts: Pearl and Crow are just great together. I love them as they push each other's boundaries and take no crap from each other. I love how Pearl stands up to Crow and how she also is the person who takes on his weight (asking about his sister, and finding out what happened). I also love how Crow is tender towards Pearl when she is hurt by Cane and how ruthless he is even with his own brother to make sure that it's clear that what he did to Pearl is unacceptable. Very intense book because of all the tension in the relationship, but so steamy and good. I can't wait to read the next one.
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