Well this book made me feel quite uncomfortable at times.

The heroine Natasha is the adopted sister in a Greek shipping magnate's family, who are involved in a family feud with the Mandrakis family, of whom the hero Alex is of course the heir. There is a take over bid by the hero and a rather convoluted plot whereby there is a suggestion that this will be stopped by offering the heroine in marriage to Alex Mendrakis, but with no intention of keeping the bargain and allowing the marriage to go ahead. The whole thing ends in a mess with natasha's brothers losing their entire wealth ( which given the general extent of wealth in Greek shipping families, I thought unlikely).

Natasha returns to Greece to sign relevant documents to wind up the company but instead finds herself brought to alex's home, where he accuses her of sending him a sexually explicit letter ( a forgery by her brothers the reason for which is never made clear) and being a whore. He indicates that he intends to have sex with her then and there. She makes it clear that she is not willing and wants to leave. She is locked in the room with him and he tells her that if she does not take her clothes off herself, he will call his men in to strip her. Natasha feels she has no choice and submits to a sexual encounter which she does not enjoy. Although it is never referred to by the author as such, there is no doubt that this is effectively a rape scene. Alex's actions are cold and deliberate and i have to admit I found it harder to take in a contemporary romance that I would have in a historical setting. Natasha was a virgin and it is made clear that Alex hurts her, that she gets no pleasure from the act. Afterwards Alex shows no remorse other than to suggest he would have prepared her body better for her initiation. WTF??

Thereafter the next day he tells her that either she submits to being his mistress or else he will make sure her foster mother does not even keep her house. He humiliates her in front of her family by outlining their bargain and making it clear that she has suffered the loss of her virginity at his hands for their sake.

He then takes her on his love yacht. The first night on board she manages to deflect 'his appetite' for her by causing s row when he asks him to marry her. The second night he takes her out to dinner and afterwards she falls into his arms. I mean - WTF?!?

The next day she realises that she loves him???

Her emotions are all over the place and her logic is shot to pieces. He takes her to his island retreat where he ignores her for days, but denies her access to a phone or her friends, whilst it emerges that her own business in London is being taken over. All she is allowed to do is sun bathe, while he deals with men's business and she must stay quietly in the background. Alex insists that he will not sleep with her again until she comes to him, and effectively begs for his attention, which she eventually does.

Alex's father arrives and there is an inevitable misunderstanding whereby Natasha believes that he is arranging a marriage for Alex with her foster sister and that because she is just a mistress/ whore she must leave quietly and so she of course runs away.

She gets back to London and starts living her own normal life. Alex arrives. He tells her that he had loved her at first sight 3/4 years ago and had sought permission to court her but her foster father had refused due to the feud. He was delighted by the offer of marriage but when he got her second explicit letter was sick to his stomach and decided to take her for revenge. Once he realised there had been a mistake and he had taken her innocence, he 'hated himself for what he had done' but could not let her go yada yada ...... She forgives him and they live hea.

This book was published in 2010 but the attitudes it expresses belong to previous centuries.

Natasha repeatedly thinks that because she is no longer a virgin she can never marry and no one will respect her and that having been alex's mistress she is used goods and must be hidden away. This was fairly incredible.

Natasha starts the book as being introduced as her own woman running a successful company in her own right but by the end she is reduced to accepting that the hero can just push her around and that business is a man's responsibility. This just did not add up at all.

At no stage does Natasha think - actually I did not want to have sex with this man and he coerced me anyway- ergo this is rape. The fact that she is willing a mere 2 nights later and then also immediately discovers her love was just unbelievable.

Overall Alex was a pretty shoddy hero. He rapes the heroine, blackmails her, humiliates her in front of her family, effectively kidnaps her and keeps her totally isolated on a yacht and then an island for weeks, whilst ignoring her and denying her any other company, treats her like a whore who must be hidden away and then gives really stupid excuses for his actions which just make no sense at all. I mean did he never just think of saying sorry, treating her with respect and acting as a decent person at the outset.....