Book Review: Buttons & Devotion

Title: Buttons & Devotion
Author: Penelope Skye
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance, Fiction.

What It’s About: Carter visits Conway and tells him that his family loves Sapphire more than Conway does, and Conway tells Carter that his father had asked him when he is going to marry her, which he found weird. Conway reveals that he hates lying to his family and the way that he’s collected Sapphire like a piece of property. Carter asks him what he wants to do about it aside of being out a hundred million, but Conway doesn’t have any answers. Instead, Carter suggests that maybe he should set her free and let her decide what she wants to do. Conway asks him what if she leaves, to which Carter tells him that he should give her all the reasons to stay. Once his assistant, Nicole, sets everything up, Conway wires money to the US and pays off Sapphire’s property taxes, loans and school loans. Then he goes to meet with Knuckles and gives him a million euro in cash, telling him that since Sapphire is his woman, her debts become his debts and he wants to pay off his debts. Conway then walks out the door, bravely turning his back on Knuckles.

Sapphire wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Conway gone, except that he’s walking in right through the door, and she eyes his clothes, hair and neck to see if he was with anyone. Conway quickly picks up on her unspoken accusation, and when she does not apologize for it, he kicks her out of his bedroom. The next day they have dinner together in her old room, and when she tries to go back to sleep in her bedroom, he comes in to demand that she move herself to his bed. They end up having make-up sex, though Conway hasn’t told her what he was doing, and he had said that he’s not going to apologize. The next morning Sapphire wakes up and watches him on the terrace, but then gets interrupted by a phone call from Andrew Lexington. She’s surprised that he’s calling her as she thought she had a week to decide, but he’s surprised that she hasn’t called him yet. She starts declining the deal again, but Andrew raises his offer to three hundred million, and tells her to take a couple of days to think about the offer. That day after working in the stables, Conway asks her to dinner with him, and takes her out to a restaurant in Verona. At the restaurant, Conway reveals that the way his family had spoken to him during their visit made him feel like crap, so he went ahead and paid all of Sapphire’s debts, including those with Knuckles. He also tells her that he’s letting her go–he’s giving her the freedom but he doesn’t want her to leave as he wants her to be his equal. After asking him a few question, Sapphire says that she wants to stay but she has a condition–he refers to her as his girlfriend. When they return home that night, they have sex. The next morning Sapphire makes the call to Andrew and turns him down, though he tells her that the offer will be on the table for some time.

Conway had begun working in his home studio on a new piece that made him think of Mykonos, Greece, where he has a home. Sapphire comes into his studio and he makes her try on the piece that he just finished. Sometime later he’s looking at all of hist creations on the models and his assistant thinks that they are perfect. Nicole does ask him if Sapphire will be in the show, but Conway doesn’t answer her until the models are gone, telling her that Sapphire won’t be modeling for the company ever again. He walks over to his office, and Lacey (one of his models) intercepts him. She tries to kiss him but he steps back, considering Sapphire’s feelings, and tells her that she looks good in his pieces. Lacey gets pissed and wonders if it’s because of her, but Conway tells her that Sapphire is not in the show, and Lacey will have the stage. He walks over to his office and speaks with Sapphire about the upcoming show–she will be attending with him, but not as a model. As they start heading out, Nicole comes up to Conway to tell him that a fabric distributor in Turkey wants to meet with him for dinner because he can give Conway a better deal on the fabric and provide better quality–a twenty-five percent deal, which does pique Conway’s interest, so he agrees. Sapphire asks about joining in the business meeting, and at first Conway says no, but ultimately she convinces him to take her. That night, they go to the meeting with the fabric distributor and Conway tells her that she’s not to do any talking–she’s there only to look pretty on his arm. Androssi Beaucount and Conway talk fabrics, but it doesn’t go in a good direction as Androssi tells Conway that he can give him the 25 % discount if he continues to use Sapphire as a model for his designs and his work continues to fly off the shelves. Conway is against that, and tension quickly fills the air. Sapphire cuts in to smooth out the situation between the men by saying that Conway will debut his new line and then get the orders for his pieces, and they can decide from there how to go forward. Conway agrees but says that he wants a 30% reduction. Returning home from their meeting, Conway tries to smoke a cigar, but Sapphire rips it out of his lips. They talk some more about the whole situation with Androssi, and also about putting her in the show, and end the night with some sex.

The next day, they sit together on the patio, and after some banter back and forth, Conway tells Sapphire that she will be working with him in the studio because he had just gotten another inspiration for a piece. Then suddenly, Pearl calls Sapphire and asks if she would like to get lunch and do some shopping together. Conway asks for the phone after Sapphire freezes, so he smooth things over, and says it’s okay that Sapphire hangs out with his mom. Conway is not happy, however, and cannot believe that his father is letting his mother run around doing whatever she wants without protection. They get into a discussion about this, but eventually Sapphire heads out with Pearl to the city, and when Conway does not come down to say good bye, she knows he is really pissed off about the whole situation. Pearl and Sapphire have a great time together out in Verona, and Pearl tells her that there is a reason for Conway’s protectiveness, but it’s not her place to say. When she returns home, Conway is still pissed off at her and the fact that the two of them were running around in Verona together. Sapphire asks Conway what happened to his family, and after a bit more begging, he tells her that he used to have an aunt that was taken by a ruthless arms dealer and killed in his dad’s arms before his parents got together. Sapphire pieces everything together and realizes why he goes to the underground to buy women, even if Conway believes it’s not a purely selfless act. She tells him that he’s not as bad a person as he thinks he is because of all that he has done for her and the other women, even if he did profit off of that. The next morning Sapphire wakes up without Conway, who has been working in his Studio since three in the morning. She goes to him there, as per his request and he has her put on a piece of lingerie that he’s made solely for her, and also they fuck hard.

Shortly thereafter, Conway takes Sapphire on his private plane out of Milan to the US. Sapphire asks him why he doesn’t live and work closer to his parents, since they miss him so much and would love for him to be closer, and he tells her that it’s because Fashion is in Milan and also Vanessa is living there; it would make him anxious to live five hours away from his sister if something were to happen. En route to New York, Conway is nervous because everyone has been questioning whether his best model will be in the show, and commenting that it could be his demise if she isn’t. When they arrive in New York, they go to the hotel room, which is a Presidential Suite and has way too much room and space for just the two of them. Sapphire looks out the window of the hotel room, and tells him that she doesn’t miss the city, as strange as it may sound, and explains why. Since they had slept on the plane, Conway takes her out to a late dinner in the city and this impresses her. He enjoys spoiling her and impressing her. She asks about Carter’s business-luxury cars–and Conway tells her that Carter has great aerodynamics, sleek design and a luxury car that has the lowest emissions, as well as releasing an electric car with the same power as a V12 engine. Conway reveals that they don’t talk about any other business but the one they’re in together–saving women from the Underground, which they split 50/50. Carter is the one that has the international connections and Conway is the one that has the connection to the Skull Kings, which is why it works the way that it works. During the conversation, he realizes that Muse had said that she makes love to him and realizes that he no longer does fucking as he enjoys sleeping with her in his bed, and enjoys being on top in the missionary position. He has her put on a new ensemble that night when they’re back in the room, but this time, he decides that they’re having anal sex, which worries Sapphire at first, but then she acquiesces and actually enjoys herself. Conway thinks to himself that even if he doesn’t want marriage and kids, he wants to have Sapphire for a lifetime, though he’s not sure how that will work.

Sapphire and Conway attend his lingerie show, and do have a few moments of quiet to themselves right before the show, where they share an intimate moment. The show itself results in a standing ovation from the crowd for Conway, and shows that he has proven everyone wrong–he could make the show a success without Sapphire on the stage. Afterwards, they have interviews, and Sapphire tries to go to the restroom, only to be stopped momentarily by a journalist asking questions about the show and her relationship with Conway. They head back to the hotel room for the night, and have sex before going to sleep. The next morning Conway is in the shower when his mom calls, and he tells Sapphire to pick it up, so she speaks with Pearl and Pearl tells her that there is an article circulating that she might find interesting that has photos of the two of them together. Sapphire uses Conway’s laptop to google him and sees the article herself, while his mom gushes about how much he’s in love with her. She hides it all right before Conway comes out of the shower, and relays the message to him without telling him about the whole love part that his mom had said, nor does she mention the articles and the pictures that she’s found of the two of them together.

Once they’re back in Italy, Conway goes to the office and gets the updates–enormous spikes in sales, meaning that his one distributor cannot reach demand anymore so they will need to take on another, and so Conway tells Nicole to get in touch with Androssi Beaucount. Nicole tells him that people were also thrilled to see Sapphire, and that her being there as his girlfriend was even better. At this point Conway opens up his laptop and notices that his name was typed into a Google search of the browser, so he looks it up himself as well, and sees the page that Muse had looked at. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, because he knows that he’s obsessed with her, but not in love with her. Later on they return to the house in Verona, and Conway wonders if Muse thinks that he’s in love with her. Before they can talk any more, Carter calls Conway and starts giving him shit for being in love with Sapphire, and then he tells Conway that he got another call for a girl named Yasmine from Israel to buy her from the Skull Kings. He goes that night to the Underground, and sees a new face in a leather jacket. This guy is later introduced as Bones, though he does not purchase any of the slaves from the Skull Kings. Once he purchases Yasmine, he drops her off at Carter’s and when she’s out of earshot, he tells Carter that there was a young guy he’d never seen before that also didn’t bid on a woman, and his name was Bones. Carter has the same reaction as Conway, and they try to figure out what to do, with Conway wanting to go to their fathers, but Carter says not to do so until they know more. They decide to see if they can find out more information on Bones to see how or if he’s connected to Bones the illegal arms dealer who killed their aunt. Conway returns home to Sapphire, who has been waiting up for him to make sure that he’s all right, and they end up having sex before going to sleep. The next day, he looks over the reports from Nicole and sees that he’s made more money than ever before, but to him it doesn’t matter–Muse does, because she wasn’t interested in his money, but in him. He walks over to her working in the stables, and together they go on a ride to a nearby hill where they have a picnic. During the picnic, he tells her that it’s time for him to take a break, and he’s thinking of taking a trip to Greece as he has a yacht and a villa in Santorini. Sapphire is excited to go with him, and they’re ready to head out to Greece, when Carter calls Conway, and tells him that he was not able to find anything about Bones. No one seems to want to talk about him, but everyone is afraid of him. They try to figure out what to do, ultimately settling on the idea of asking the waitress at the Underground to get them information, in exchange for money.

Conway takes Sapphire to his apartment in Milan along with his men, and leaves her there while he goes to the Underground with the promise he’ll be back in an hour. There, he talks to Cynthia and asks her to get him info on Bones, but it will cost him forty-thousand euros. He agrees to it, then gives her his number to call when she finds something out on Bones. He sits down at the booth, and when the auction starts, he notices a very young girl in the line up. Not having any plans to buy anyone, he bids on the other women to not raise suspicion. Then the young girl gets auctioned off, and he is disgusted at the rivalry between the old men who want to break this girl in until her spirit is gone, so he purchases her for thirty million. When he gets her to his car, she doesn’t speak to him, and he takes her over to Carter’s to take care of her and return her to her family. He then heads back to Milan, and realizes that he’d broken his promise to Muse–he’d been gone two hours. He calls Muse and tells her that he’s en route to her, and apologizes for breaking his promise. She then demands to know the answer of what is going on, so he tells her the whole story about Bones, trying to get information about him, and about the very young girl in the Underground. Muse tells him that he’s a good person, and it makes him feel good to save a life.

Sapphire and Conway spend a blissful five days in Santorini, enjoying the sights and each other. That is interrupted when Cynthia calls him and tells him that Bones is indeed the son of the illegal arms dealer that killed their aunt. So they return home to Verona, and Conway meets with Carter to relay the news to him. Bones’ mother was pregnant with him when his father was killed by their family, and Bones is his middle name which is also the name that he prefers to go by. They discuss why he hasn’t made a move on them yet, considering he knows who they are, and they decide to visit their fathers. The next morning Conway leaves with Carter to Tuscany, after he says good bye to Muse–he doesn’t want her to see how their parents will react to the news, and involve her in this. On the drive down, Carter questions Conway about what the deal is with Sapphire, but Conway doesn’t answer. Thirty minutes from their home, Conway calls his father to tell him that they need to talk and to include Cane, but not his mother. The four men meet up in Crow’s office, and Conway and Carter tell them everything that they know about Bones, going as far as telling them that they’ve been buying women from affluent families from the Underground, and releasing them. Crow and Cane kick the boys out of the house, too pissed to talk tactics with them, so Carter and Conway leave the house to stay in Florence. The two are so dejected for being kicked out of the house, surprised at how that turned out, and feeling bad about it. At the hotel that night, Conway FaceTimes Sapphire and they talk a little bit, with her trying to make him feel better about himself.

The four men reconvene the next day, though Pearl’s presence at the meeting surprises Conway, and discuss the information that Crow and Cane were able to confirm about Bones. At one point Conway mentioned that Bones Sr was killed because of what he did to their aunt, and Pearl looked down–a movement that he wouldn’t have noticed if his father hadn’t looked at her. Clearly he’s missing something. The boys want to do something, but both Crow and Cane says that they will be doing nothing for now, because they are no longer in the criminal business–they sold theirs to the Skull Kings, and are solely in the wine business. They don’t know what Bones wants and they don’t want to start another blood war. Crow and Cane then tell the boys that they are not to have any more business in the Underground, because they’re doing it for selfish reasons to make money, and because it’s unsafe. Conway makes the mistake of telling his father that he purchased a young girl at the Underground the other day for no reason other than wanting to save her, which pisses Crow off enough to start to rant at him. Pearl cuts Crow off and does her own speech with the boys, and gets both of them to promise out loud that they will never participate in the Underground.

Sapphire is alone back in Tuscany, when Vanessa calls her and asks her to go out with her. She tries calling Conway but he never picks up, so she arranges two of Conway’s men to drive her to meet up with Vanessa. The two girls have a wonderful dinner together, and on the way back to the car, Sapphire gets intercepted by a man with a microphone who starts asking her questions. She tries to avoid answering questions, but then he asks her if she loves Conway Barsetti, and she says that she does.

Conway saw that he missed the calls from Sapphire, but he was too pissed off by the situation with his father to call her back, and he didn’t want to be shitty company. The next day, Conway and Carter head back to his parents house, to say goodbye. Conway talks to his father for a few minutes alone, and Crow tells him that there’s a lot that he doesn’t know about him, and it was that way for a reason. He tells Conway that he isn’t judging him and he’s never judged him for his actions, but he just doesn’t want Conway to make the mistakes that he made because he loves his son. Crow tells Conway a little bit about his father, the arms dealership, the blood war that they had inherited and how cold he was towards others–it all changed because of Pearl and he wanted to be a better man for her, and he can’t watch his son get involved in a life he’s worked hard to protect him from. Conway says that he’s not the same as his father because he’s never killed anyone, but Crow tells him, that’s just the start; there’s always a trigger somewhere that starts a war. Conway agrees to drop it when Crow asks him to not go back to the Underground again. They hug, and then Conway goes to Carter, who is smiling. He reveals a video of Sapphire saying that she does love Conway Barsetti. The entire drive back to Tuscany, Conway is silent because of the video–he’s not sure how to feel about her declaration, and is pissed because he told her that he didn’t want romance or love. Carter and he talk, but Conway is adamant that their relationship has a time limit, because it’s not how he designs lingerie–monogamy leads to stale and boring relationships. Carter points out that their parents are very much still in love, so Conway’s theory about staleness is incorrect. Carter tells him that women like Sapphire are rare for putting up with his bullshit, and to not do anything stupid. Conway doesn’t respond, and there’s a lot of anger in him towards his parents and Sapphire. He marches into the house with the intention of telling her off, but melts at her words and touch, giving into her.

The next day he goes to his office in Milan, and just sits there because he can’t draw anything for his business. Nicole walks into his office, surprised that he’s there as she thought he was taking time off. When he gives her one word answers, she tells him that Sapphire’s public declaration increased their orders by an additional twenty-five percent. That shocks him but then upsets him even further, because he doesn’t like that she has this much power over him, and Nicole reminds him that she had this much power over him since day one, but also the same power over the entire world.

Sapphire gives Conway space as he’s not really responsive and she figures that it’s because he’s tired from his family visit. But she realizes that he’s suddenly cold towards her, and he snaps at her when she tries to ask him what’s wrong. She goes into his office after he’s been working out, and instead of calling her “Muse,” he uses her name, Sapphire, which he never does unless talking about her to his family. She slaps him when he calls her that for the second time, and he tells her to get out. When she leaves the room, she takes some time to figure out what is going on, and reaches out to Vanessa, who in turn gives her Carter’s number. She calls Carter and asks him what happened, to which Carter tells her that he showed Conway the video of her saying that she loved him. When she says that it doesn’t matter because she knows that Conway loves her to, Carter tells her that it’s not what Conway says he feels, though Carter thinks he’s lying to himself. She gets off the call with Carter, and marches to Conway’s office and tells him that he’s a coward. She gives him a whole speech, and when he doesn’t apologize to her or tell her that he loves her, the two get into an argument over how his job is the most important thing to him, even though it shouldn’t be. Conway continues insulting Sapphire, and in the end she tells him that his parents would be seriously disappointed in him right now. Conway tells her to get the fuck out of his house, and when Sapphire sees the rage on his face, she knows that he means it. He gives her 10 minutes to get out.

She uses that time to pack some of her clothing, but she can’t fit anything–instead, she takes out one of her dresses that she packed, and puts a few of Conway’s shirts into her bag. On her way out, one of Conway’s men gives her a set of keys that go with the red Ferrari that he owns, and also a suitcase with money. She grabs the suitcase, tosses it out onto the lawn and tells the man to tell Conway that she doesn’t want his money, she was never his whore. She gets in the car and speeds off from the house. Once she gets into the highway, she calls Andrew Lexington and takes him up on the offer he had left her a while back.

My Thoughts: Things are seriously heating up in this book, and I really do enjoy how the relationship develops, but I wished that Conway would just open up to Sapphire and trust her with the whole Bones situation. I wonder if the Barsetti family will do something about the Underground eventually, because it seems like the two younger men (as well as Crow and Cane) do have a moral compass that makes them want to save women, even if it is for money (though Conway has done it to save the girl without anything in return). It seems like this is not the place or time where they will actually cover this, but I do hope to see something down the line in this series, since the series is about 15 books long. I am enjoying seeing the relationship develop between Sapphire and Conway even further, though I do think these Barsetti men are a little emotionally stunted–it’s the women who are telling them that they love them (except for Cane’s story, where they both had to figure it out by being separated for some time) and the men throw fits of some kind that send the women packing. I’m curious to see how Conway comes around in the next book.