Jodie Oliver flees to Italy when her fiancé dumps her for another woman a few weeks before their wedding and gets lost on country roads. Duke Lorenzo di Montesavro needs a wife in less than six weeks to prevent his scheming cousin-by-marriage from inheriting his castle. When he comes across Jodie, exhausted and broken down on the side of the road, he asks her to marry him and offers to divorce and settle a million pounds on her after a year, so that he can inherit his castle without having to marry the scheming cousin. Jodie accepts if Lorenzo will accompany her to the ex-fiancé's wedding. But soon Lorenzo is feeling unfamiliar attraction to his virginal bride and Jodie knows that what she felt for John is nowhere near as strong as her feelings for her new husband. Will they admit their feelings and decide not to divorce when the year is up?
Lorenzo wasn't too overbearing so I managed to make it through the book without wanting to strangle him. I liked his attitude to children and war and Jodie's scars and loved the way he stood up for her at John's pre-wedding celebration. Wouldn't have minded an epilogue on John's wedding and its success or failure. I got this as a present and read it because it was the only book available at the time even though I quickly realised it was a reread from 2006.
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