Secrets of the Tycoon's Bride by Emilie Rose (SD 1831)

Reviewed by Janet85 on July 8th, 2008, 4:51pm

by Emilie Rose

Format: Print Books

Series: Silhouette Desire

Back Cover: 

He needed a wife—a perfect, respectable wife—fast! And Lauryn Lowes was the ideal candidate to become Mrs. Adam Garrison. A natural beauty with brains, Lauryn already worked for him. Soon, his playboy reputation would be a thing of the past.

But when Lauryn turned his "proposal" down flat, the bachelor billionaire suddenly became more determined than ever to capture her as his bride. No matter what the consequences…

Spoiler Warning: All my reviews contain spoilers to some degree.

Favourite Scene:

“I’d be a good husband.” His voice came out huskier than intended. He cleared his throat and continued. “I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.”

A beat later her eyes widened. “You’re saying we’d sleep together?”

“Maybe not sleep. I like my space. I have a study we can convert into a bedroom for you. You’ll have privacy when you need it. But for appearances’ sake this must appear to be a normal marriage in every way.”

“But you’d expect sex. With me.” She didn’t sound as if she relished the idea and that pricked his pride. He was good in bed, dammit. He’d been perfecting his technique since he was sixteen. And he never left a woman unsatisfied.

“Definitely. We’ll be together for two years. That’s a long time to be celibate. Infidelity would negate the purpose of the union by showing I couldn’t be trusted.” 

Another Fav Scene:  (I like what this passage says about fidelity.  And the heroine is so confident she won't give in first because she hasn't had sex in 9 years, since her wild youth)

“There will be no competition. I told you, Lauryn, I won’t be unfaithful despite your ridiculous insistence on celibacy.”

She marched across the room and stopped in front of him. “It’s not ridiculous.”

He stretched his arms along the back of the sofa and let his gaze coast from her face to her breasts, waist, legs and then back up again. Goose bumps sprouted in the wake of his examination.

“We’ll see who can hold out the longest. And when you break, you come to me. No one else.”

She wanted to smack that smug smile off his face. “I won’t break.”

My Review:

Really really good book.  I liked the H/h as people, they had great chemistry pulling them together, and conflict keeping them apart.  If you compare this book to "Dante's Wedding Deception", they both had "bad girl" heroines, but I much preferred this book, the heroine learned her lesson much earlier and only had a misspent youth rather than a criminal adulthood.  I liked the way they got pulled into the marriage of convenience.  I liked that the hero was a player to begin with, but for the course of his two year marriage to the heroine he was determined to have fidelity even if it meant celibacy (until he could seduce her into saying yes eventually of course!). 

It was also a nice breather that the hero hadn't been up to his playboy ways in months (since his father's death) because it avoided the ick factor of him having jumped into bed with tons of other women while the heroine was around and pining for him.  The heroine called him on his lifestyle, but then he turned the tables by asking her how many different lovers she had had, so fair's fair, they both didn't want to answer about their pasts and neither could be judgmental.  Lots of things to like about the book.  

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars, really good book