seriously romantic: ruthless by gina maxwell

in ruthless, the second book in gina maxwell's playboys in love series, we see roman and addison light up the boardroom and the dance floor with their explosive chemistry and crazy sexual tension.

addie has always been the girl who flouts the rules, she fights for what she wants, and works and plays hard. she wants roman as soon as she sees him, and even though he usually doesn't get tangled up with friends of friends sexually, she's going to make sure that he breaks that silly rule of his. there's a reason for this that addie isn't aware of. roman has certain needs that most girls he meets aren't up for. he enjoys sharing his partners, having another pair of hands on hand in order to increase his partner's pleasure.

addie is taken aback by these needs, but she's open-minded enough to try things. especially given how intense the connection is between roman and her. when she ends up working at roman's newly-launched law firm, at first they try to stay away from each other, but it's too late to stop their relationship, they are already too connected to keep things only professional. their relationship as it develops and grows is really lovely, and sweetly emotional.

but just when roman is ready to admit that he's ready to be intimate with only addison, and doesn't need the added buffer of a third, he's blindsided by a secret that addison has been keeping from him. now as you are reading, you totally know that this is coming, but at the same time, it's one of those things where the whole thing could have been avoided. i think the issue is that what causes the big blow up is such a stupid misunderstanding, and these characters are smarter than this. they should have been able to communicate better, we'd seen their relationship grow into something strong, even given their emotional baggage. so the level of obtuseness was a bit hard to swallow given that they had been behaving like normal human beings otherwise.

they figure themselves out, but i think i would have preferred something less dramatic happening to cause the drama or something with bigger stakes, because in the end, when they finally have the talk that resolves everything, they've been separated for three months, and a ten-minute conversation fixes things. and like of course i'm happy for a happily ever after, but at the same time, i struggled with the way everything ended up getting resolved.

**ruthless will publish on january 30, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing (scorched) in exchange for my honest review.