The Diplomat's Pregnant Bride

Duchess Diaries #2

by Merline Lovelace

A wild weekend changes Gina St. Sebastian's life, but one thing won't change—her marital status. Ambassador Jack Mason, the dashing, arrogant father of her unborn baby, can forget about a marriage of convenience. She's perfectly capable without him. Never mind the heat between them. That's pregnancy hormones!

Jack will deploy his formidable charms to do what's right—marriage for the baby's sake. Yet the more he tries to convince Gina, the more he realizes he wants her as much as he wants his child….

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Harlequin, Harlequin Desire

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

After a 23-year AF career, Colonel Merline Lovelace launched a second career as a writer, basing many of her tales on her own experiences in uniform and on her travels all around the globe.

The USA Today best-selling author now has more than 11 million copies of her books in print. Her works have won numerous awards, including the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA. Merline is especially proud to have been named the University of Oklahoma's Writer of the Year and the Oklahoma Female Veteran of the Year.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. We first met Gina in A Business Engagement, as Sarah's flighty younger sister. At the end of that book, Gina has called on Sarah for help after finding herself pregnant with Jack's baby. Gina has decided it's time for her to grow up and face her responsibilities. She's decided on a career and feels quite capable of raising her baby on her own. Jack wants Gina to marry him right away for the baby's sake. It doesn't hurt that he's hot for her too.

Gina was great. She's been pretty flighty and definitely ready for a good time. She had a really great weekend with Jack but wasn't expecting anything more. Finding out she was pregnant really freaked her out and she panicked, leaving him a somewhat incoherent phone message before fleeing to Switzerland. While there she calmed down and decided to get her life in order and raise the baby. She didn't expect Jack to come tearing after her and propose that they get married right away. Gina still feels the same attraction for him, but she's not going to marry a man she doesn't love and who certainly doesn't love her. She knows that he's still hung up on his late wife and that's not what she wants in a marriage. I loved the way that Gina had enough respect for herself to stand up to Jack. She wasn't going to settle for anything less than what she felt she deserved. I also liked the way that she went after the job she wanted on her own merits not by getting assistance from people she knows. I enjoyed seeing the way that Gina did her job so well and earned the respect of her coworkers. There are a couple places that made me laugh out loud. One was when she was every inch the Grand Duchess's granddaughter and told off Jack's chief of staff. She stood up to Jack's father quite well too. I also liked seeing how Gina and Jack spent time together and got to know each other. This enabled Gina to realize that she was falling for Jack. She suffers from a bit of an inferiority complex when she compares herself to his late wife and that makes her doubt their chances even more. I loved her reaction to Jack's confession right before they were attacked. It was great to see how things finally worked out for them. I hope we get to see them again in the next books.

Jack is determined to get Gina to marry him. He hates the idea of his child not growing up in a family. However, he makes the mistake of thinking that Gina would be fine with a marriage of convenience. Jack had been deeply in love with his wife and doesn't expect to ever love like that again. He has been trying everything he can think of to get Gina to say yes and she refuses every time. His frustration is pretty satisfying since he's being an idiot. I liked the way that he decided to back off on the demands and just try to stay involved with her. I loved seeing him come to respect her the more he got to know her and see her work. It was great to see him step in a play bartender for awhile at one of her events. He also discovered that he was thinking less about his wife and more about Gina, admitting to himself that maybe things hadn't been as terrific as his memories made them. It was great seeing him stand up for her against his father, and I loved the jealousy that popped up around Gina's cousin. The kidnapping scene had me really confused about whether Gina's cousin was a good guy or a bad guy. Loved the conclusion to that bit of drama.

There's also a nice setup for two more books in the series -- can't wait!

[Karen Fausto · Rating 3 out of 5]

No sé porque pero sentí la lectura muy plana. Tenía los argumentos perfectos, el camino más fácil, solo que no fue lo que esperaba. La parte de acción no fue la mejor y no fue descrita con demasiada angustia por parte de ambos personajes, todo lo que sería una reacción real. ¡Casi como si supieran que iban a vivir!

[Nightwitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half was enjoyable and pretty much as expected but the second half veered into a weird half-baked suspense plot.

[Andrea Lujano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Protagonistas: John & Eugenia

Profesiones: Organizadora de Eventos & Diplomático

Pais: USA

[Katrina Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, but some of the descriptive paragraphs were a little excessive. They felt like page filler's instead of tying into the actual story. If you skip them, the story progresses faster.

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this story….

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. This was a cute little story about the second granddaughter of the Duchess, Gina. In the last story, we met Gina who just found out that her weekend fling with Ambassador Jack Mason resulted in her pregnancy. Now he wants her to marry him, to give his child his name and protection. Gina's not willing, not because she wants to hold out for love as most heroines do, but because she knows she'd never measure up to Jack's dead wife and things would no doubt end badly when she disappointed him. So he's doing his best to convince her and she's trying to prove to herself that she's actually capable.

I was a bit nervous for this, since I expected Gina to be the flighty, irresponsible party woman she seemed to be in the last story. But apparently, pregnancy changes her and she sets out to prove that she can hold down a job and be a responsible person. And she's quite successful I might add. I liked the woman she became, but found her turnabout a bit unbelievable, especially as she had no regression or slip ups. She basically had a personality transplant. Jack was a pretty awesome hero. For once a hero seeking marriage who doesn't pressure, blackmail and force the heroine into marriage. He just sets out to be there for her and lets nature take its course. My problem with this story though, wasn't in the characters, but with the lack of resolution for some issues. We know why Gina's not willing to get married, but she never tells Jack her reasons nor do they ever address her insecurities about measuring up. It doesn't really feel like they talk about anything significant so much as they just seem to have sex and then naturally end up together. Something about their relationship just felt unfinished.

Also, there's Dom. I get what he was doing and the fact that he was with law enforcement when he used his connections with the Duchess to get himself and his peeps closer to Jack but I'm not sure that's forgivable. His job and his connections nearly got Gina and Jack killed and nobody has kicked him out. If I were the Duchess I'd be furious that he'd used me and manipulated me in such a way even if it had been for justice against a noted criminal . So I'm a little surprised that he's with the family during the whole debriefing and not out on his ass in the streets where he belongs.

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So. The heroine was raised in genteel poverty by her exiled-duchess grandmother, who gave her (and her sister) an education befitting two members of the aristocracy of a now-defunct (imaginary) country. She had to sell her jewels to do this, and she reminded me of Anastasia for some reason.

The heroine, Gina (Eugenia), has never held a job for any length of time and has (we're told kind of vaguely) flitted from man to man and career-idea to career-idea.

But now she's PREGNANT, and motivated to make a living and become a responsible adult. Part of me wants to dismiss this as an idea straight out of Romancelandia, but honestly, pregnancy is a strangely sobering and motivating experience.

The hero, meanwhile, is a career diplomat with a someday-maybe eventual shot at the presidency, and has a beloved dead wife. So the heroine sensibly doubts he really loves her, and is uninterested in marrying him just for the baby's sake (and even LESS interested in marrying him for the sake of preserving his image for political purposes--which, to be fair, isn't on his mind either, but it IS on his father's agenda).

Because of the hero's job there's more talk of national security than I'm used to in a romance, and also more kidnapping (of the hero, not the heroine). I enjoyed it immensely. I don't know if this is a feature of HDesires as opposed to HPresents, or its just a strength of this particular author, but there was none of the hand-waving "oh he's a billionaire in...business" I've seen a lot of lately, and both the hero and heroine actually GO TO WORK, instead of being assigned exciting job titles that we never see them living up to.

A slightly longer and more spoiler-ish review can be found on my blog: http://themummyreads.blogspot.ca/2014...

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. There's an unexpected pregnancy and the heroine doesn't want to marry the hero because he's still hung up on his late wife. So there's a fair bit of dealing with that issue and with the heroine finding a job she likes and is good at (event planning). A suspense plot shows up at the very end of the story, but it doesn't feel tacked on or out of place because Lovelace has set up the hero's involvement in this sort of thing. I liked this quite a lot.

[Harlequin Books]

"Readers will savor the whimsical dialogue and rich descriptions in this reading delight. Lovelace has crafted a story with characters to root for and lots of heart. Don't pass this one up!" RT Book Reviews, rated 4 1/2 stars
Miniseries: Duchess Diaries

[Diane Mcabee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Duchess and her love and responsibility for her two orphaned granddaughters. Love the intrigue.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes romance. It shows a woman's vulnerability when we are faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was utterly ridiculous, but kind of fun if I'm being honest.

[Sassy]

Good quick read. Wouldn't mind reading more in the series. But I would've liked the love scenes to be "more" but this is not one of those books. I think the author could write Blaze books.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great short story. I'm still a bit unsatisfied (if this is even an adjective)