Kept is part of The Gemini Men series which is about brothers who run a security/bodyguard firm. While this is a story I usually love, I can’t say I liked this book much. I found the characters unpleasant and the plot kicked in too late to engage me.

Derek Taggert and his brothers own Gemini, a security firm. When the book begins, Derek is working security at a party where the Van Weldt family – who own an exclusive jewelry firm – are showing off some of their latest sparklers. The model is Alyssa Miles, Oscar Van Weldt’s illegitimate daughter. Derek is not the kind who reads Us or watches E!, so he isn’t aware of Alyssa’s notoriety. She is a party-girl, she’s done stints in rehab, and is famous for her nude pictures on the internet. As the party is winding down, Alyssa comes on to Derek and asks him to take her home, but they end up at his place and have sex.

When Alyssa makes it back to her home, she finds her father and his wife Grace dead. It looks like an open and shut case of murder-suicide – Grace was a heavy drinker and had issues. Harold Van Weldt, the new head of the firm, disapproves of Alyssa but since she is beautiful and newsworthy, he uses her in ads where her almost naked self is draped in diamonds. When Alyssa gets threats against her, Van Weldt hires her a bodyguard. (Of course it’s Derek – who did you expect)?

By this time Derek has found out about Alyssa, and he thinks she is an air-headed, druggie slut, and her behavior only confirms his suspicions. Several times, when she is supposed to make a speech or presentation she slurs, stumbles and acts like she’s drunk or drugged. Alyssa insists she’s sick, but Derek doesn’t believe her. When he has to take her home after one incident, he gives in to her pleas for a rest and they have lots and lots of sex. Finally Derek discovers that Alyssa is being poisoned and she does have enemies – several of them and they are ruthless and evil to the core.

I dunno – isn’t a romance supposed to be between people who love each other? Derek spends about two thirds of the book thinking the worst about Alyssa and looking down on her. Of course his loathing doesn’t stop him from having sex with her – after which he broods about how he hates himself for doing it. This sex with loathing went on for far too long to suit me, and when Derek finally realized he loved Alyssa, I didn’t buy it. And I didn’t buy the happy ending either. Oh and when Alyssa and Derek were doing the deed the descriptions of how big he was and how teeny, tiny she was skeeved me out. Ick!

Alyssa was…..well, she was at least trying to get her life back in order. She tended to do stupid things and then ask herself why she did them. Honey, you are supposed to ask yourself that question before you go out to a sleazy bar in a bad section of the city to meet the man who has been sending you cryptic text messages – okay? I did like Alyssa better than Derek as a character – she was trying to turn her life around and if she wasn’t quite there yet, she had determination. I couldn’t help but think she’d be better off moving some place where she isn’t well known.

When the villains come into the plot, it picks up considerably. There are several of them, and they are all involved in the blood diamond business. One of them, Louis Abbassi is a particularly nasty piece of work with a very unsavory interest in Alyssa. He is truly creepy, and if there had been more of him and less angry sex with Derek I think this would have been much better.

I normally enjoy romantic suspense with hot love scenes, but the sex with loathing and Derek’s attitude toward Alyssa turned me off Kept in a major way. It had lots of potential, but in the end, I really can’t recommend it.