Jennifer Peel

“It started with Isabella trying to escape from Dexter, who Miles led you to believe at the beginning wasn’t a good guy, except he tries to keep Isabella comfortable and he never touches her. But she’s being held against her will, so that didn’t engender any warm and fuzzy feelings between them. In fact, the insults she lobbed at him were fantastic, like, You pikey pillock. [...] Dexter, for his part, took them all in stride and never retaliated, not even when she told him his mother must have been a slag. Yikes.
The only time Dexter exerted any force was when he came in to bring her food and she used her feminine charm on him. Poor Dexter was stupid enough to believe it might be real. Wishful thinking on his part. Except when Isabella did get close to him, she felt a little something and it startled her. [...] She kneed him in the groin anyway and ran away. Dexter recovered quickly enough to catch her. That’s when he started sleeping in her room to make sure she didn’t escape. And that was when things started to get interesting. Isabella meant to lure him into believing she was interested in him to gain his trust, but the more she got to know him, the more she can’t help but like him.

I read their exchanges as they talked late into every night, with him on the floor and her on the bed, asking all sorts of questions from his family to how he felt about politics. [...] [Dexter] possessed a calm reassurance about himself and a deep understanding of people and situations. [...]

Poor Isabella thought she was getting the upper hand in all of this, but it didn’t take her long to realize she was losing ground. She began looking forward to their nights spent talking and sometimes playing Stop the Bus, a card game she used to play with her father. Dexter began using these moments to gain her trust, to start telling her the truth of her situation. It was enough that when they were discovered by two men clad in black who claimed to be there to rescue Isabella, she chose to flee with Dexter after some kick-butt fight scenes.
[...]
Isabella and Dexter fled to France. They almost kind of had a moment there. Isabella was furious with him because she felt like he was hiding something from her. She goes to slap him, but he grabs her hand before she can make contact. The unspoken words and emotion between them were totally hot. You thought he was going to kiss her, and so did she. She found herself yearning for it and she hated herself for it. [...]

While in Paris, Isabella discovered a clue in her father’s journal that led them to Colorado. It had to do with a town legend involving a tree where lovers carved their names. It was said any pair to carve their name into the Aspen tree would only be parted by death. I loved that he used an Aspen tree. That was where they began to see how intertwined their lives were. Dexter’s mother’s name and Isabella’s father’s name were carved together into the tree long before either of them was born, but Isabella’s father’s name was crossed out.

At first, I was grossed out thinking that they might be siblings, but Dexter was ten years older than Isabella, and his mother died before Isabella was born. But their parents were lovers. Interesting. [...]

While they tried to figure out who might have crossed out Isabella’s father’s name, Isabella and Dexter started dancing on the edge of their feelings. Miles made the cabin they were staying in at the Ranch one room, not just one bedroom. A large, single room with only a bathroom for any privacy. Inch by inch, the sexual tension between them grew. Little touches here and there. But more than that, there was an emotional connection. Isabella began to let down her guard. She owned how afraid she was that her life had been a lie. But on the flipside, she had this desperate hope her father was innocent. More than that, she longed to be able to trust someone, but she didn’t know how.”
― Jennifer Peel, My Not So Wicked Boss

“But he wasn’t in love with her. At least not yet. The possibility existed, but he’d hoped to have time to explore his feelings for her, to see if his affection could become something more and lasting.”
― Jennifer Peel, Forgettable in Every Way