Billionaire Daddy Protector: Second Chance Age Gap Romance

I received this book without purchase via the authors ARC team and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I only made it 4 chapters before DNFing. The writing isn't for me due to the writing in general but also because the plot moved so fast within those first 4 chapters. So fast that I had to check to see if this was a short story collection that I mistakenly thought was a novel. I skimmed ahead a bit and it went in the direction I was hoping it wouldn't, at least not so soon especially given the characters histories with each other.

Ultimately this book isn't for me and I couldn't get past the writing and the errors in order to finish it. I wish I was able to finish it as I am usually of the opinion that things that are confusing in the beginning need to be given the chance to be explained. However, other reviews have stated that the main focus of the book isn't explained so that cancelled out my usual reason to stick with books I'm not enjoying - curiosity.

Edit: the errors were getting increasingly stranger so I downloaded the sample from the Amazon listing and it is free of the errors I mentioned previously (which are now deleted). Something must of gone wrong in the conversion for the ARC that was fixed before publication. There still are some formatting errors in the Kindle version (e.g. large chunks of dialogue and regular text stuck together without paragraph breaks) which are annoying but compared to the previous errors it's not a deal breaker for me.

I'll go into detail about the plot below with spoiler warnings.

Tropes:
- age gap
- second chance
- damsel in distress
- protector/saviour
- insta love/lust
- billionaire (apparently? Didn't get that far)
- forced proximity
- hidden secrets

Triggers:
- violence on page
- unresolved trauma from shared history
- vague medical situation involving a young child
- dubious consent in a sexual encounter

SPOILERS BELOW
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Plot (as far as I got into it): A matchmaker (FMC) has been receiving threats and it's implied the threats are due to a poor matchmaking experience from a previous client. FMC's assistant hires a bodyguard to protect her which the FMC doesn't believe she needs. The bodyguard turns out to be her ex from 12 years ago who left her without a word. FMC is still very upset about this but keeps him as her bodyguard. FMC is attacked by assumed kidnappers which the MMC fights off. MMC drives her home, they share a kiss, she invites him up, decides it was a bad idea, instantly forgets that decision, they have sex, he refuses to answer questions again, and he leaves.

I assume the plot will go further into why she's being targeted and the whole billionaire thing but I couldn't read any longer.

What I didn't like:
- FMC didn't fire MMC after seeing it was her ex (conflict of interest, anyone?)

- FMC was a damsel in distress and didn't have a sense of self preservation during the attack scene (why did she just sit there and not lock the doors or run like the MMC yelled at her to do several times??) and it felt like she didn't have a sense of agency at all. I understand trauma and being frozen but she had multiple opportunities to leave but didn't and clearly wasn't in panic mode as she replied to the MMC twice in a non-agitated manner

- She has 12 years of resentment for him leaving her without warning over a decade ago and in the fourth chapter they're already boning (presumably it wasn't that big of a deal for her despite conveying how hurt she was and is by it?)

- He didn't answer the direct question of why he left multiple times (which is one reason for why she should have fired him)

- Reasons/decisions/reactions are brought up and thrown away without explanation (e.g. FMC is desperate to get her lost necklace back but not so desperate that she'll put off sex and then the matter is dropped even after he leaves)

- Apparently he's only a bodyguard between office hours because he goes home after the sex (I guess the people who tried to kidnap her only do crimes between 8am - 5pm?)

- MMC abused her traumatic vulnerabilities for sex and then left without explaining anything AGAIN after acknowledging to himself and her that he hurt her in the past by not explaining anything

Things I didn't find out:
- Why was a billionaire working as a bodyguard?? It couldn't have been to get close to her as he is surprised to see her in the first meeting as much as she was and he describes it as fate throwing them back together

- Why did she accept him so readily after 12 years of resentment and no contact? Why make a decision to ask him to leave only to change her mind one second later?

- Why was she being targeted? A mismatch in love cannot be the only reason.

I may end up reading the rest of the book to answer these questions but it's very likely that I won't.