The Sicilian's Defiant Mistress by Jane Porter (HP 2520)

Reviewed by Janet85 on July 31st, 2008, 7:49pm

by Jane Porter

Format: Print Books

Series: Harlequin Presents

Back Cover:

When revenge, secrets and passion ignite!

Cass can't continue with a relationship that involves just her body when her heart is breaking.... But the deal she made with Sicilian tycoon Maximos Borsellino was for sex — and when that fails to be enough for Cass, Maximos ends the affair. Cass is completely destroyed. Worse, she discovers she's pregnant....

But an explosive reunion is on the cards in Jane Porter's dark, passionate and utterly gripping story.

Spoiler Warning: All my reviews contain spoilers to some degree  

Content Warning: Dark story, intensely emotional, a total roller coaster.  Know this though, I rated it 5/5 stars.  Holy heck, I was totally pulled in and had tears in my eyes the whole time.  The H/h were both faithful, both unable to move on after their breakup.  This is the best book I've read from Jane Porter.

Favourite Scene: (h just walked into the H's house on an enemy's arm, and his family assume she's the enemy's tramp)  

"He's brought one of his tramps with him, too," Adriana continued in the same hushed, furious tone. "How dare he do that to you? To Mama? To any of us? What kind of man is he?"
  Maximos's lips curved as he stared out the window, but he wasn't looking at Emilio. He was studying Cass, taking in her chic high heels, her formfitting black lace blouse, the cut of her elegant black knit skirt which showcased the most incredible legs he'd ever seen in his life.
  He knew those legs intimately.
  For nearly three years he'd owned those legs, parted them, tasted them, wrapped them around his waist as he'd taken her, made her his.
  And he'd made her his, many, many times over the two and a half years they were together. 

Another Fav Scene:

  "He's here?" he guessed.
  "In the bathroom."
  "In the bathroom," he repeated tightly, disapprovingly.
  "We're sharing a room."
  His brow lowered, his expression dark. "Not in my house."
  "Maximos-"
  "Not in my house," he repeated, standing in the hallway thinking the worst sort of thoughts.
  Cassandra here. Cassandra engaged to Emilio. Cassandra sleeping with Emilio.
  He saw red, blood-red, and happily contemplated murder.      

My Review: 

Holy hell was this an emotional roller coaster of a book!  Hop on when you're ready for a dark passionate read.  It's a very very good book, and so tightly written Jane Porter almost deserves a medal.  I'd say this is the best and most intense book I've read from JP.  Know in advance, that there was fidelity, because that meant the hero mourned their relationship and really cared.  The heroine was the hero's "sex only" mistress for 2 1/2 years, then she asked for "more" i.e. love and he said "we need to end this" essentially and left. 

It's been 6 months, and in that time, the heroine went through hell emotionally mourning the relationship, then she found out she was pregnant and it was a troubled pregnancy that ended in miscarriage four months in.  She is emotionally wrecked.  An enemy of the hero's suggests she attend the hero's sister's wedding with him, and she goes along pretending to be the enemy's fiance so that she can see the hero and get closure/answers. 

The heroine is not trivially motivated, this isn't a whim, her life and work life are going down the crapper because she's not over the relationship, that's a good reason for closure.  She's going to hear the "truth" about why the hero couldn't love her and offer her marriage... and it's a dark and unhappy reason, and if you read between the lines/tags... and you can probably guess what it is. 

The hero reacts to seeing her with the other man, he gets possessive, and JP describes it very sensually, the hero wants to wipe her lipstick off so that he can touch her actual skin/lip, the word "his" mentally reverberates in him.  As quickly as he can, he drags her off into a private cloakroom where he can talk and touch her.  I like that the hero doesn't believe she's actually engaged to / sleeping with his enemy, he keeps saying "this is a sham".  It's a charged moment when he asks her why she chose his enemy, and she says "because I knew it would drive you crazy" and he releases a breath and breathes "bitch". 

I like that she torments him with the engagement, he put her through a hellish relationship for the last three years, he deserved a little misery for the few hours she left him believing it.  Really, he knew their relationship was causing her pain, but he couldn't do the right thing and let her go, he loved her but never told her, and knowing that added another dimension to the story.  The heroine was in a very bad place after their break up, and what was good about this was that it gave her an inner strength and a conviction that she could handle anything, she could do whatever she wanted, say what she needed to say to the hero without fear of rocking the boat, because she could survive and she needed to know certain things for her emotional/mental health. 

They talk and work through their feelings for each other.  They end up in bed again.  She wants more time with him, she says he's "mine for an hour" and he mentally corrects her silently "no, yours forever".  The hero did something the heroine finds unforgiveable, and that keeps her from taking him back for a while.  The hero won't accept no, he won't accept that it's over, he knows he loves her and she loves him, and he's passionately persistent.  He offers to wait for years for her, he has tears in his eyes, he crowds her space asking her to admit her feelings, he's so thoroughly in love.  It's like there's three characters in any scene between them: the H, h, and their passion.    

My Rating: 5/5 stars, this is a very thorough emotional roller coaster of a read.  I had tears in my eyes and usually if you make me cry, it's because I'm hurt by the plotline and the pain the H/h are going through, but here I never felt bad about what they went through, because the denominator was always their passion and love.  Other women, other men, miscarriage, family pressures, a marriage... all came down to them at the centre of it finally talking about their relationship and showing their passionate feelings out in the open after 2 1/2 years of hiding them.