The Ultimate Betrayal by Michelle Reid (HP 1799)

Reviewed by Janet85 on May 9th, 2008, 2:04am

by Michelle Reid

Format: Print Books

Series: Harlequin Presents

Back Cover:

'I never meant to do it...she was just there when I needed someone...'

Rachel and Daniel had three adorable children and a strong marriage - or so Rachel had always believed. But her happy existence was shattered when she was told that Daniel had been having a, affair. Then she realised that they'd been growing apart for years. Rachel wanted to save her marriage - but was it too late  

My Review: 

Holy crap.  I cried like mad during this book, even the happy loving moments between them made me cry.  I needed to pull out the kleenex.  This book is about Daniel and Rachel, who married when she was 17 and pregnant with the first of their kids.  They have been together seven years, and through those years Daniel has gained business success and his life has changed, but he's tried to keep his family life separate from that, keep his family as his "garden in the vile jungle".  During a bad period where all three of their kids were ill, Rachel was run-down, and Daniel was under threat of a business takeover, Daniel started seeing another woman... a colleague at work who he started seeing outside the office.  He quickly came to his senses, and he never had sex with the other woman, but he still felt what he did was cheating and he felt a lot of guilt.  Rachel was told by a third party about it, and it nearly destroyed their marriage, but she stayed and fought through the pain. 

Daniel tried to tell her once or twice that the "affair" wasn't sex, but he never tried to yell "I didn't cheat!  It's not like we had sex."  I'm glad he didn't, I'm glad he considered what he did cheating and was disgusted with himself.  I'm glad at how the heroine worked through her feelings about the affair, she really explored her feelings, her life, her goals, where she stood in their marriage. 

Neither of them wanted to give up on their marriage, but it wasn't an easy path back to each other.  Trust, love, faith were battered and all of a sudden the heroine felt completely insecure in herself: could she please her husband, would he cheat on her if she didn't, when she's pregnant will he turn to another woman again?   It was so intense to read the feelings of the heroine, and to read how the hero responded, how his face went white, how he stilled.  She briefly flirted with making the hero jealous, using another man, and the way the hero just felt he had no right to ask questions said SO MUCH. 

This is a hugely intense read, go into it ready to get on an emotional roller-coaster.  It's not a disappointment, and it's not negative, the love is really strong between the hero/heroine.  Reading the hero's words near the end, when he fully disclosed everything that led up to the affair, was intense and satisfying.  I respected the hero a lot when he told the heroine about how he felt when he found out she was pregnant at 17, he described how relieved he was that she was pregnant, that the hard choice was taken away from him, he didn't have to be selfless and give her up so that she could have a normal life after high school, he HAD to marry her and that was exactly what he wanted more than anything. 

Rating: 5/5 stars, this is such a well-written story.  I don't know how Michelle Reid could write something like this, the emotional intensity of writing this book must have been insane.  I could see how the writer could sit there, working on the book, and think "what do I do with Daniel and Rachel now?  How do they come back to each other after this?"  Intense.