Clay Price has everything he’s ever wanted, except the one thing money can’t buy—Natalie Weston. Years ago, Clay and Natalie were in love…until she turned down his marriage proposal. Now Clay and his brothers are oil-rich billionaires, and they can have whatever they want. And what Clay wants is Natalie in his bed, no matter what it takes. If it means being ruthless, he’ll do it.

Natalie gave up on true love years ago when the realities of the world destroyed her fairy-tale hopes. Giving up Clay is her biggest regret in life, and she’s excited to see him return…until she finds out why. Clay’s got one hell of a proposal for her: he’ll save her father’s business and bail Natalie out of debt if she’ll agree to become his very personal assistant. It’s clear that he wants more from her than just typing.

It’s also clear that Natalie has no choice. This scoundrel’s bet could destroy any hope they had of reconciliation—or it could bring them together once and for all…

Clay Price and Natalie Weston dated in high school.  They loved each other and right after graduation Clay planned on asking Natalie to marry him.  Clay, being a good guy, wanted to talk to Natalie’s father first, however.  Natalie’s father, once a movie star – and a rich snob, was not a good guy and when he met Clay told him that Natalie was breaking up with him.  The father then told Natalie some lies about Clay and that Clay had broken up with her.  Dad’s plot to tear his daughter and her poor white trash boyfriend apart: Successful.

Seven years later Natalie, whose father planned on her going to Stanford, is barely scraping by while running a museum of her father’s memorabilia.  She never went to college and now tries to run the museum out of their house while taking care of her father and his increasing dementia.

Clay is now a billionaire and still in love with Natalie – only he thinks of it as just lust.  They had never slept together in high school and Clay is still a virgin.  He puts together a plan to pay Natalie to be his “assistant” and be at his beck and call 24/7.  Natalie is drowning in bills and is lonely and tired.  She still loves Clay but doesn’t like the fact that she’s basically prostituting herself out to him.  She has no choice but to agree.

Dirty Scoundrel was a cute book and I liked a lot of things about it.  I loved the Price brothers and their camaraderie and obvious love for each other.  I liked the flashes into Boone and Ivy’s life (from book 1, Dirty Money) that we got.  I liked that the book had some highly emotional moments in it that were written very well. Unfortunately I’m not sure I loved Clay and Natalie.  They weren’t bad people, but Clay acted like an asshole so many times that I wanted to hit him and I wanted Natalie to stand up for herself and have a bit more backbone! I realize that Clay was trying to act hard and play the scoundrel (hence the name of the book) so that he could “get back” at Natalie for dumping him, but there were times he shouldn’t have been an asshole and he was anyway.

Clay wasn’t an asshole the whole time and there were times when I really liked the couple together but that wasn’t a constant.  I know that Clay just didn’t know what to say to Natalie at times but he wasn’t an unintelligent at all and I think some of the things that the author had him saying were a bit much.  IMHO he just wouldn’t have said half of it.

I was happy in the end that Clay and Natalie got their HEA and their life worked out together.  I’m looking forward to reading more about the Price brothers and seeing what happens next.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5