Wed to the Texan by Sara Orwig, Desire, #1887, August 2008 (book 3- Platinum Grooms)
Jake Thorne has just learned that in order to inherit a lot of money, he is to be married and in order to get even more the marriage should provide a child. So he asks his shy secretary, Emily Carlisle to enter into a marriage of convenience. He doesn't tell her about the money instead telling her that since they both wanted a family but soured on relationships it made sense that they marry. Everything was going pretty well for a year and half until Emily discovered a letter that made her realize Jake married her for money. His offering her more money to stay in the marriage longer when she made sounds of leaving the marriage because she wasn't pregnant yet made sense but she first thought Jake really wanted this marriage. Now she also understood his persistence about getting a nursery done in their first few months of marriage. Jake's world revolved around money so he offered Emily $1 million to come back and live with him for 6 months in an on paper marriage only, figuring he could seduce her in a month. He couldn't fathom someone willing to give up that kind of money. He also couldn't understand why Emily was so mad. Emily made a counter offer, the million dollars plus 4 hours a week of his time to coach teens in football. If he doesn't agree she'll give up the million dollars and file for divorce. Maybe his shy little secretary isn't so shy after all. He didn't want Emily leaving him in six month, but if money wasn't the answer, he had to find another way to make sure she didn't leave. Could he make her fall in love with him?
I had a few problems with the H. The inheritance seemed to be constantly on his mind with every move he made in his seduction of Emily. But I will say that maybe he did care about her a bit without realizing it because he gave in to her counter offer. The h started to sound like a broken record about leaving after the 6 month no matter what. I thought the ending was a little abrupt and there could've been more detail given why the three guys got together.
Excellence Rating- Good ~ Steaminess Rating- Yummy (*)
Personal total- 128 ~ harl/sil- 98 ~ other- 30
Ratio of TBR/ new- Totals since Jan 1= 50/78 ~ July= 2/4
Christa ~ Quiet Canadians ~ 2008 Challenge Blog
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I had probs with the hero's
I had probs with the hero's motivation myself: no self-respecting wealthy alpha is so motivated by money that he will commit himself to a marriage to get even more money. I've never seen an alpha marry for money, it's always been marrying for another motivation.
I do love that the hero wouldn't let the heroine go though... he gave in to her counter offer as you said.... and held on tight. Love that.
Here's a bit more from my review...
My Review:
The H/h didn't have love at first sight. I worried about them because they had to fight to fall in love, but I guess it's realistic. I liked the way the conflict developed in this book: he married for an inheritance but she didn't know until a year and a half into their marriage, she left as soon as she found out about the inheritance and he came chasing after her, offering her a deal to make her stay for six more months. I never really understood why he wanted this billion dollar inheritance so bad. He was a very wealthy man in his own right, and one thing about an alpha hero is that they never let themselves be bought with money, so I didn't understand the hero's motivation being purely financial in this book.
I liked how the hero was so confident he could seduce her after she agreed to six months of name-only marriage, he was adorably persistent and set on HER. I liked that she smartened up and was his equal in their battle to get the best of each other and get what they wanted. I couldn't understand why the hero was so excited and ready to fly off to Europe to tell Hub personally that his wife was pregnant (a condition of the inheritance) when the heroine was sobbing with rage over the pregnancy instead of delight. He should have been worried and concerned.
My Rating: 3/5 stars, great that there was no ick factors, but I would have liked to see the H/h fall in love sooner, personally.
almost
he almost seemed obssessed with making money. I don't know how Emily put up with it for 17 months
Christa ~ Quiet Canadians ~ 2008 Challenge Blog
My Shelfari Page
I was curious about what/who
I was curious about what/who turned Emily off relationships enough to make her accept the proposal and the kind of non-fully committed marriage they had. (It's not a full marriage unless there's feelings) It worked out fine as it was, I wouldn't want to mess with it too much. The author could have gone a different way and made the story more focused on "Emily's ex" and him returning to plague the marriage, so I'm GLAD it didn't go that way... but yeah, I'm just curious.