Book Review: It Hurts Me

Title: It Hurts Me
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Crime

What it’s about: Astrid drives in the heavy rain after an Art Gala, and her car swerves, thankfully into the side with no cars. It seems like her car’s tire had deflated, and then she tries to get her phone to work, but unfortunately, it’s out of juice. Suddenly, a Range Rover pulls up, and a tall, gorgeous man walks up to her, and tells her that he had seen her drive over the Shrapnel. The man has a skull ring on his finger, and offers to help Astrid fix her wheel. While she sits staring at him, he pops open her trunk, gets the spare wheel and works on fixing it in the rain, getting soaked through. He tells her to go home and get off the roads, so Astrid goes home wondering when her husband will come home—her husband who she met at a club three years ago, and who is a contract hit man.

Theo goes to meet with his men, and then they go meet with Bolton to ask for information on who killed Theo’s brother, Killian, as well as get the bones for burial. Bolton refuses to give him the information on the person who ordered the hit on Killian, if Theo does not want to give him 5% cut into his business, as it would be very risky for him in the Brotherhood. They end up not making a deal.

Astrid goes to visit a client, to determine the size of the walls for him to put up art in his house. She had been invited by George, who tells her that the man isn’t picky. Astrid responds that she’s not going to put whatever on the wall without knowing the man’s tastes, and to have him come to the gallery to view the artwork. George tells her that he will speak with Mr. Bianchi about it.

A few days later, she’s working at the Art Gallery, when the tall, handsome stranger comes in and she learns his name is Theo. She shows him around, calling him out for being a jerk when he’s a bit fussy, and unfortunately he does not find any interest in the paintings. He does look at one of Mussolini, and tells her that Mussolini is his great grandfather, but he doesn’t want the painting to look at. She says that they have nothing else besides the dark and demonic artwork downstairs in the basement, and that she can make appointments with other galleries to help him find what he’s looking for. Theo asks to see the paintings, and ends up picking out five of them, including one with a changeling. He invites her for dinner, but she declines stating that she’s already married. He seems to pick up on the discord in Astrid’s life with her husband.

Astrid’s husband comes home from another trip overseas, and he tells her that they should start working towards a family like she wanted as time is running out. She tells him that she is not okay with him continuing to work at his job and not be home, whereas he tells her that he wants her to be taking care of the kids while he provides and basically states that it’s non-negotiable. A day later, he asks her to open up their relationship, which shocks her. She struggles with it, but then decides to take Theo up on the offer for dinner after she delivers his paintings to his home and he helps her take them out of the protective covers.

They go to a restaurant, and have a good time eating and talking, after which she heads home because she’s not able to go through with being in an open relationship. She waits for her husband to come home, and he comes back with a pink lipstick smear on his neck under the collar. Astrid notices that Bolton, her husband, is in a better mood that day than normally, and decides that she too will go use this open relationship.

Over the next few weeks, Theo stops by at Astrid’s gallery because he drove by and saw her standing there unsure of herself and sad, so they grab lunch, and she gets confirmation that he indeed is the Skull King. He takes her back to his restaurant (the one that they ate at the first time together on the dinner date), and they run into Scarlett and Axel, who gives Theo shit about dining. He also takes Astrid to Scarlett’s restaurant another time, and she makes a joke that he always gets a table even when reservations have run out because he refused her after she threw herself at his feet to have sex with him. They end up having sex—first oral, and then penetrative sex, but he keeps using a condom. At some point, Astrid visits Boston’s family with him, and she seems distant. He offers to end the open relationship if it bothers her so much, but she decides to continue with it because she does not want to lose Theo, who is the first person who has made her feel like she was the center of his attention.

Then Astrid sleeps over for two days straight at Theo’s place. She returns to the house after work on the same day that Bolton is supposed to return from an event, and Bolton starts questioning her as to why the security system has not been unlocked in two days, telling her that if she’s sleeping over, it has become a relationship, not a one night stand, which is what he has been doing—a quick fuck in the cities that he’s in. He tells her that men cheat, and there is no one man that will stick with one woman forever, and that she has seen the men in his circle with their many mistresses. She tells him that she does not believe him, and that there are men that do not do this. They do end up going to a restaurant to meet with one of Bolton’s clients.

That night, Theo and his men decide to grab Bolton at his meeting with one of his clients, and Theo goes through the restaurant to find him, only to find out that Astrid is his wife, so he calls off the kidnapping. He tells Axel, and decides to continue to do the relationship with Astrid.

After that dinner, Astrid and Bolton get into an argument and Astrid decides that she’s done with this, and wants a divorce. She packs up her bag and goes to the Ritz. Theo calls her and she tells him what happened, that she’s getting a divorce. They talk, and then he leaves. A few days later, he comes back to her and they end up having sex—this time without a condom. He stays the night at the hotel, and then goes home, where he finds Bolton sitting in his study with George, his butler, tied up. Bolton tells him to end things with Astrid, and destroy her self confidence so that she will come back to him—in exchange, he will tell him the details of who killed Killian and where to find the information. Theo goes back to Astrid and tells her it’s over, but Astrid does not want to believe it. He isn’t cruel but he isn’t kind; just distant, telling her that he’s dumping her and she lacks the grace to accept it. He leaves, and Astrid finishes packing, while crying for a man that had never really been hers.

My Thoughts: This is such an interesting take on a romance story—a woman already married to someone who is in the underground market, so she’s well aware of everything that happens in that side of the world, and she decides to enter into a relationship with the Skull King, of all people. I did enjoy how the author explored the open relationship concept—something that I haven’t seen commonly happen in the romance world—but this book seems to be an example of where this open relationship stuff actually doesn’t work. It’s almost the classic cliche where the man wants to cheat so he wants to open up a relationship, though there are no rules of what is okay because it’s only for him (right?). Then, once he realizes that his wife is also taking advantage of this open relationship and she actually has better luck than he does, he decides to end it. It reads like something I read on AITA in Reddit recently, where the scenario is similar. But I do like the slow steam that Astrid (though I’m not a fan of the name) and Theo have in their relationship, and how it turns into a slow burn by the end of the book, only for Theo to have to break her heart because Bolton twisted his arm.