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Secrets & Sins / Hearts of Fire #2
Desire & Deception
Desire & Deception by Miranda Lee released on Jun 23, 1995 is available now for purchase.
186 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
3 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Miranda Lee
815 books236 followersMaureen Mary was born on 1945 at Port Macquarie, a popular seaside town on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, and is the youngest of four children. Her sister was the novelist Wendy Brennan (Emma Darcy). Her father was a country school teacher and brilliant sportsman. Her mother was a talented dressmaker. When Miranda was ten, her father was transferred to Gosford, another coastal town in the countryside, much closer to Sydney. After leaving her convent school, she briefly studied the cello before moving to Sydney, where she embraced the emerging world of computers. Her career as a programmer ended after she married, had three daughters and bought a small acreage in a semi-rural community. Following this, she attempted greyhound training, as well as horse and goat breeding, but was left dissatisfied.
Miranda yearned to find a creative career from which she could earn money. When her sister suggested writing romances, it seemed like a good idea. She could do it at home, and it might even be fun! It took a decade of trial and error before her first romance, After the Affair, was accepted and published. At that time, Miranda, her husband Tony, and her three daughters had moved back to the Central Coast, where they could enjoy the sun and the surf lifestyle once again. Not long into her writing career, Miranda committed herself to writing a six-book series entitled, The Hearts of Fire, with a deadline of just nine short months. Bravely, her husband left his executive position to stay home and support Miranda’s writing career. He learned to cook and to clean, two invaluable household skills. Numerous successful stories followed, each embodying Miranda’s trademark style: pacy and sexy rhythms; passionate, real-life characters; and enduring, memorable story lines. She has one credo when writing romances: Don’t bore the reader! Millions of fans world-wide agree she never does.
Miranda was the sister of the late author, Emma Darcy.
Miranda yearned to find a creative career from which she could earn money. When her sister suggested writing romances, it seemed like a good idea. She could do it at home, and it might even be fun! It took a decade of trial and error before her first romance, After the Affair, was accepted and published. At that time, Miranda, her husband Tony, and her three daughters had moved back to the Central Coast, where they could enjoy the sun and the surf lifestyle once again. Not long into her writing career, Miranda committed herself to writing a six-book series entitled, The Hearts of Fire, with a deadline of just nine short months. Bravely, her husband left his executive position to stay home and support Miranda’s writing career. He learned to cook and to clean, two invaluable household skills. Numerous successful stories followed, each embodying Miranda’s trademark style: pacy and sexy rhythms; passionate, real-life characters; and enduring, memorable story lines. She has one credo when writing romances: Don’t bore the reader! Millions of fans world-wide agree she never does.
Miranda was the sister of the late author, Emma Darcy.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 2, 2017
In my never ending quest to spring clean, I picked up this book to decide if I wanted to keep or discard it. Once I started reading, it all came back. This is part of a series that begins with the mystery of an opal (Heart of Fire), two feuding families and long-ago secrets that are just now coming to light.
I think the ongoing romance thread is going to be Nathan and Gemma's relationship. He's the adopted son of the one of the feuding families and original owner of the opal. She's the daughter of an alcoholic miner who had the opal in his possession when he died. There is a mystery surrounding her and Nathan has hired detectives to find out her origin story. In this story (the second in the series). They marry and have an uncomfortable honeymoon because Nathan got an idea for a play he was writing and completely ignored her.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. That comes at the end of the story. The central romance in this volume is between Jade, the poor little rich girl who shows off her rockin' bod and generally makes a scene wherever she goes because her mother hated her. The hero has been brought into the h's father's opal company to help with their non-existent marketing. The heroine is a marketing major in uni and begs to work as a part-time assistant.
The heroine tries all of her wiles on the H, but he seems immune until they have been working together for a few weeks. They eventually start a sexual relationship, but the H breaks it off abruptly when the h says she never wants to marry or have children and she's only using the H for sex. She says most things to hide her true feelings, and so far the H has been able to see beneath her facade, so it's a surprise when he breaks it off. There are accusations about bedding the daughter of the company owner for personal gain, etc . .
The heroine mopes around, gets help from all of the other female characters (her adopted brother's first wife, the housekeeper, her artist auntie), and dresses demurely for their PR trip to the racetrack for the company. The H finally confesses that he broke it off so she could come to terms with her feelings. They each declare their love then the H confesses that he has a different name. He's one of the richest men in Australia. He just wanted to meet someone who liked him for himself and not his money. Hence the "deception" from the title. HEA
I remember liking this series and I'll have to track down some of the other stories. The housekeeper's story is the next one. The adopted brother's daughter's story (she's 14 in book two) is the last one. And hopefully Gemma will get over her suspicions of her husband by then. LOL - not a chance. This is a soap opera as much as a romance (lots of side characters getting divorces and trading partners). I did like how the women in the story helped each other out and changed their judgments. All the men are hot and rich. What's not to like?
I think the ongoing romance thread is going to be Nathan and Gemma's relationship. He's the adopted son of the one of the feuding families and original owner of the opal. She's the daughter of an alcoholic miner who had the opal in his possession when he died. There is a mystery surrounding her and Nathan has hired detectives to find out her origin story. In this story (the second in the series). They marry and have an uncomfortable honeymoon because Nathan got an idea for a play he was writing and completely ignored her.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. That comes at the end of the story. The central romance in this volume is between Jade, the poor little rich girl who shows off her rockin' bod and generally makes a scene wherever she goes because her mother hated her. The hero has been brought into the h's father's opal company to help with their non-existent marketing. The heroine is a marketing major in uni and begs to work as a part-time assistant.
The heroine tries all of her wiles on the H, but he seems immune until they have been working together for a few weeks. They eventually start a sexual relationship, but the H breaks it off abruptly when the h says she never wants to marry or have children and she's only using the H for sex. She says most things to hide her true feelings, and so far the H has been able to see beneath her facade, so it's a surprise when he breaks it off. There are accusations about bedding the daughter of the company owner for personal gain, etc . .
The heroine mopes around, gets help from all of the other female characters (her adopted brother's first wife, the housekeeper, her artist auntie), and dresses demurely for their PR trip to the racetrack for the company. The H finally confesses that he broke it off so she could come to terms with her feelings. They each declare their love then the H confesses that he has a different name. He's one of the richest men in Australia. He just wanted to meet someone who liked him for himself and not his money. Hence the "deception" from the title. HEA
I remember liking this series and I'll have to track down some of the other stories. The housekeeper's story is the next one. The adopted brother's daughter's story (she's 14 in book two) is the last one. And hopefully Gemma will get over her suspicions of her husband by then. LOL - not a chance. This is a soap opera as much as a romance (lots of side characters getting divorces and trading partners). I did like how the women in the story helped each other out and changed their judgments. All the men are hot and rich. What's not to like?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2018
Re Desire and Deception - Miranda Lee continues with her Hearts of Fire miniseries. Book two focuses on the bad girl vixen of the Whitmore dynasty, Jade.
Our character list is the same in this one, tho we get a little more information on the rival opal trading family challenging he Whitmore dynasty, the Campbell's.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK
GEMMA SMITH: On her father's death. Gemma discovered a magnificent black opal worth a small fortune and an old photograph which casts doubt on her real identity. In quest of the truth and a new life, she goes to Sydney, after fate introduces her to Nathan Whitmore. . .
NATHAN WHITMORE: Adopted son of Byron Whitmore, Nathan is acting head of Whitmore Opals and a talented playwright. After a troubled childhood and a divorce, he is ruthless and utterly emotionally controlled. Will he ever drop that mask and give Gemma the love she needs. . .?
JADE WHITMORE: The spoilt, wilful only daughter of Byron and the late Irene Whitmore (nee Campbell). Secretly she wants to rise to the top in Whitmore Opals, but her wild-child ways give a different impression to everyone. . .except, perhaps, Kyle Armstrong?
KYLE ARMSTRONG: The new Marketing Manager at Whitmore Opals. Handsome and enigmatic, he is unforthcoming about his background. Does he plan to use the Whitmore family for his own ends?
BYRON WHITMORE: Recently widowed, he is the patriarch of the Whitmore family, and a stranger to love.
LENORE LANGTRY: Talented stage actress, ex-wife of Nathan Whitmore and mother of Kirsty, Lenore has finally found love with top solicitor Zachary Marsden.
MELANIE LLOYD: Housekeeper to the Whitmores, Melanie is emotionally dead since the tragic deaths of her husband and only child.
AVA WHITMORE: Byron's much younger sister, she struggles with her weight, her spinsterhood and her fear of failure.
KIRSTY WHITMORE: The wayward fourteen-year-old daughter of Nathan and Lenore.
This one opens with the morning after a small scene from the last book, Seduction & Sacrifice. It seems wild child Jade had carelessly left her sports car parked haphazardly on Belleview's front lawn, perhaps from trying to park while intoxicated.
As Jade wakes up in her room at Belleview, we learn that her erratic parking isn't due to intoxication. She let one of her gay friends bunk at her flat and he invited other friends over and one of them tried to attack her. She fought him off and fled, but she is suffering physical damage and wants Nathan to play big brother and go over to her flat and kick everyone out.
Except Nathan is at the beach with Gemma and Kirsty and Jade's father, Byron is home. Jade has a lot to think about as she makes her way down to the kitchen. Her father is an adulterer with the housekeeper before Melanie, (Jade walked in on him with her, then he let the housekeeper go.)
Ava is timid and fat and too pathetic to do something with her life and Bryon, who is Ava's brother too, is way too fond of bullying her. Ava has no money of her own until she marries - per her father's will - so Jade thinks that she should give Ava some family jewels left to her.
Then at least Ava would have some financial independence of her own, as Byron is a severe chauvinist who thinks the only place for a woman is in the home or in a man's bed. (Ava unfortunately refuses.)
This frustrates Jade to no end, cause while Jade has her own money, she is also getting a degree in business and she wants to work at Whitmores, but her seriously unliberated father keeps refusing.
Jade also reflects that Melanie is a very lovely lady, even tho she disapproves of Jade, and we are left to ponder if Melanie is ever going to recover from her grief about her dead husband and child.
Jade then bemoans how her mother, who was certifiably insane, was horrible and abusive to her as a child. There were beatings and lies about Jade, until Nathan made her mother stop some way, and Jade often wonders why the rest of them are so willing to believe her mother's lies about her bad character.
Not that Jade hasn't had some wild moments. Neither of her parent's cared about her and Jade did the usual teen girl thing and had two boyfriends she slept with while looking for some kind of love We also learn Jade had a drunken one night stand more recently when she got hurt by rejection.
We get a little more info on Nathan via Jade too. Apparently Bryon pulled him off the street at King's Cross and there were rumors of drugs and maybe prostitution.
Jade is angry with Nathan, because she had a crush on him and he kissed her and then angrily rejected her and she is outraged that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Jade probably drinks a bit more than she should in family situations, but she is under constant criticism about everything she does.
From bleaching her hair blonde to dressing too provocatively and not wearing a bra, her hypocritical father is all about her ruining the family image. Jade wonders that there is so much emphasis on image rather than substance, especially since her father was shagging the former housekeeper and she vows to find a way to get her wish to work at Whitmores.
That wish is granted when her father hires a new Public Relations guy, it seems Campbell opals is doing some dirty business to undercut Whitmore and the new PR guy, Kyle Armstrong, is staying for dinner while Byron and he make plans to push Whitmore to the top of the opal game.
To Jade's very great surprise, she has instant Lurve Force Mojo attraction to Kyle. She can't understand why, he is a bit domineering and conservative and seems to be unimpressed with her charms, but he does take her on board at Whitmores to be his assistant and learn the business.
Jade spends a lot of time obsessing about Kyle and then she spend more time trying to stop, she doesn't want to be caught shagging the boss and plus, Byron has just revealed that Whitmore's will be hers someday and Jade wants to be all on top of running that.
In the meantime Nathan is getting more and more obsessed with Gemma. They aren't lurving it up when they return to Belleview, cause Gemma wants a ring on it before she starts providing milk and cream. So Nathan is getting very physically frustrated and for Nathan, that is not a good thing.
Nathan also decides he is bowing out of Whitmores, we learn that he has his own wealth from his grandparents and doesn't need Byron's. Gemma gets the mandatory makeover with a new hairstyle from a happy Lenore, who is all set to marry Zachary, and Jade, who is getting more concerned that Gemma is going to be deeply hurt.
Jade knows Nathan is on the prowl for Gemma and she is very worried, along with everyone except for Byron, cause Nathan's only use for a woman is in bed, the rest of the time he ignores them. Nathan has bad things in his past hinted at, but we have to wait for further books to learn more.
So Kyle and Jade start working together and Jade has good ideas to promote Whitmores. But Kyle seems to be completely immune to Jade, except when he is smacking her bottom in the office after she tells Nathan that Kyle is not her type.
That all goes by the wayside one Friday night and Kyle and Jade turn the pages purple with their moment of Transcendental Bliss in a luxurious houseboat that supposedly belongs to Kyle's rich school friend, some big time Australian Billionaire from Tasmania.
There are business strategy meetings, Kyle bullying Jade, big time purple passion office lurve club events and then the big break up when Kyle says they should get married and Jade joking calls Kyle her boy-toy and claims she never wants to get married or have kids.
Kyle dumps her like a hot potato and Jade doesn't understand the big freeze out, so she has a mopey moment or six. Gemma gets a ring from Nathan and he complaints that her new look isn't the sweet, adoring concussed duckling one that Nathan prefers from his little woman.
Gemma starts to have serious doubts about the wisdom of being with a man like Nathan, but the Lurve Force Mojo rules all and the two of them elope. All of the ladies are very sad for Gemma and look at her with pity.
They know how uninvolved in relationships Nathan actually is and they see Gemma in love and know that Nathan doesn't really love her back. Jade remarks that at least Nathan married her, instead of pumping and dumping her, now Gemma will be financially secure when it inevitably all goes south.
Gemma's doubts grow bigger after the wedding. Nathan takes her to the beach house at Avoca and after a big Lurve Mojo fest, he gets some inspiration and ignores her for days while he writes out a new play. Then he gets angry when she goes out on her own and she isn't dutifully waiting for him in his bed, now that he is ready to use her cause his creative drive is burned out.
Byron is ecstatic over the marriage, but Kirsty is devastated. She wanted her parents back together and she thought Gemma was her friend, so she has deep feelings of betrayal and Gemma realizes that fences are going to have to be mended.
Gemma also decides that since she has learned Japanese and Nathan is oblivious to her when he is writing, she is going to get a job. Nathan seems to panic that she is leaving him, but if she gets a job that is okay, as long as she us available on the weekends he needs to recover his creative drive.
Jade begins to think that Kyle deliberately tried to get her preggers during their big Purple Mojo Moments and she asks Kyle if he was trying to use her to get control of Whitmores. Kyle denied it, but then he dumped her and Jade is left to wonder what exactly Kyle is hiding.
Eventually a promotional event forces Kyle and Jade together and there are several remarks that Jade finally doesn't look like a high priced tart in her new dress for the even cause she is actually wearing a bra.
Kyle admits that he was doing the hot/cold act to get her to marry him because he supposedly fell in love with her the night he met her.
Jade has been fathoms deep in love with Kyle for a week now and Lenore was the one who helped her pick out her demure, man catching dress and undies. Things are looking rosy as Kyle and Jade do their big horse racing promotion of Whitmores.
Then a woman approaches Kyle at the event and we learn that he is really not Kyle Anderson at all. She calls him Mr. Gainsford and after Jade feels devastated that he lied to her and starts to dump him, Kyle gets nasty and claims that he is one of the richest men in Australia and Jade should take her foot out of her mouth.
Then we get this big sob story about how Kyle's parents died at birth and left him billions and all his life he has been courted and flattered and inconvenienced by people because he has a lot of cash. He really wanted to be loved for only himself and decided to make a plan.
He borrowed his male assistant's last name to take the job at Whitmores, fell in love or something with Jade and now they are getting married and Jade can just get over being lied to for all of the book.
Kyle is planning on continuing to lie to Bryon about who he really is and Jade can maybe keep learning to run Whitmores, when she isn't too busy being his bed playmate wife and having his kids - she only has year left at uni and surely she can work around that to get cracking on the broodmare requirements right away.
We leave Jade delirious with joy or concussed from her and Kyle's major passion extravaganzas, and anxiously await book three.
There we will see the effects of Gemma's doubts, hopefully find out more about her mysterious heritage and Melanie will finally come out of her shell of grief for another excursion in this whacktastic and epic HPlandia outing.
Our character list is the same in this one, tho we get a little more information on the rival opal trading family challenging he Whitmore dynasty, the Campbell's.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK
GEMMA SMITH: On her father's death. Gemma discovered a magnificent black opal worth a small fortune and an old photograph which casts doubt on her real identity. In quest of the truth and a new life, she goes to Sydney, after fate introduces her to Nathan Whitmore. . .
NATHAN WHITMORE: Adopted son of Byron Whitmore, Nathan is acting head of Whitmore Opals and a talented playwright. After a troubled childhood and a divorce, he is ruthless and utterly emotionally controlled. Will he ever drop that mask and give Gemma the love she needs. . .?
JADE WHITMORE: The spoilt, wilful only daughter of Byron and the late Irene Whitmore (nee Campbell). Secretly she wants to rise to the top in Whitmore Opals, but her wild-child ways give a different impression to everyone. . .except, perhaps, Kyle Armstrong?
KYLE ARMSTRONG: The new Marketing Manager at Whitmore Opals. Handsome and enigmatic, he is unforthcoming about his background. Does he plan to use the Whitmore family for his own ends?
BYRON WHITMORE: Recently widowed, he is the patriarch of the Whitmore family, and a stranger to love.
LENORE LANGTRY: Talented stage actress, ex-wife of Nathan Whitmore and mother of Kirsty, Lenore has finally found love with top solicitor Zachary Marsden.
MELANIE LLOYD: Housekeeper to the Whitmores, Melanie is emotionally dead since the tragic deaths of her husband and only child.
AVA WHITMORE: Byron's much younger sister, she struggles with her weight, her spinsterhood and her fear of failure.
KIRSTY WHITMORE: The wayward fourteen-year-old daughter of Nathan and Lenore.
This one opens with the morning after a small scene from the last book, Seduction & Sacrifice. It seems wild child Jade had carelessly left her sports car parked haphazardly on Belleview's front lawn, perhaps from trying to park while intoxicated.
As Jade wakes up in her room at Belleview, we learn that her erratic parking isn't due to intoxication. She let one of her gay friends bunk at her flat and he invited other friends over and one of them tried to attack her. She fought him off and fled, but she is suffering physical damage and wants Nathan to play big brother and go over to her flat and kick everyone out.
Except Nathan is at the beach with Gemma and Kirsty and Jade's father, Byron is home. Jade has a lot to think about as she makes her way down to the kitchen. Her father is an adulterer with the housekeeper before Melanie, (Jade walked in on him with her, then he let the housekeeper go.)
Ava is timid and fat and too pathetic to do something with her life and Bryon, who is Ava's brother too, is way too fond of bullying her. Ava has no money of her own until she marries - per her father's will - so Jade thinks that she should give Ava some family jewels left to her.
Then at least Ava would have some financial independence of her own, as Byron is a severe chauvinist who thinks the only place for a woman is in the home or in a man's bed. (Ava unfortunately refuses.)
This frustrates Jade to no end, cause while Jade has her own money, she is also getting a degree in business and she wants to work at Whitmores, but her seriously unliberated father keeps refusing.
Jade also reflects that Melanie is a very lovely lady, even tho she disapproves of Jade, and we are left to ponder if Melanie is ever going to recover from her grief about her dead husband and child.
Jade then bemoans how her mother, who was certifiably insane, was horrible and abusive to her as a child. There were beatings and lies about Jade, until Nathan made her mother stop some way, and Jade often wonders why the rest of them are so willing to believe her mother's lies about her bad character.
Not that Jade hasn't had some wild moments. Neither of her parent's cared about her and Jade did the usual teen girl thing and had two boyfriends she slept with while looking for some kind of love We also learn Jade had a drunken one night stand more recently when she got hurt by rejection.
We get a little more info on Nathan via Jade too. Apparently Bryon pulled him off the street at King's Cross and there were rumors of drugs and maybe prostitution.
Jade is angry with Nathan, because she had a crush on him and he kissed her and then angrily rejected her and she is outraged that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Jade probably drinks a bit more than she should in family situations, but she is under constant criticism about everything she does.
From bleaching her hair blonde to dressing too provocatively and not wearing a bra, her hypocritical father is all about her ruining the family image. Jade wonders that there is so much emphasis on image rather than substance, especially since her father was shagging the former housekeeper and she vows to find a way to get her wish to work at Whitmores.
That wish is granted when her father hires a new Public Relations guy, it seems Campbell opals is doing some dirty business to undercut Whitmore and the new PR guy, Kyle Armstrong, is staying for dinner while Byron and he make plans to push Whitmore to the top of the opal game.
To Jade's very great surprise, she has instant Lurve Force Mojo attraction to Kyle. She can't understand why, he is a bit domineering and conservative and seems to be unimpressed with her charms, but he does take her on board at Whitmores to be his assistant and learn the business.
Jade spends a lot of time obsessing about Kyle and then she spend more time trying to stop, she doesn't want to be caught shagging the boss and plus, Byron has just revealed that Whitmore's will be hers someday and Jade wants to be all on top of running that.
In the meantime Nathan is getting more and more obsessed with Gemma. They aren't lurving it up when they return to Belleview, cause Gemma wants a ring on it before she starts providing milk and cream. So Nathan is getting very physically frustrated and for Nathan, that is not a good thing.
Nathan also decides he is bowing out of Whitmores, we learn that he has his own wealth from his grandparents and doesn't need Byron's. Gemma gets the mandatory makeover with a new hairstyle from a happy Lenore, who is all set to marry Zachary, and Jade, who is getting more concerned that Gemma is going to be deeply hurt.
Jade knows Nathan is on the prowl for Gemma and she is very worried, along with everyone except for Byron, cause Nathan's only use for a woman is in bed, the rest of the time he ignores them. Nathan has bad things in his past hinted at, but we have to wait for further books to learn more.
So Kyle and Jade start working together and Jade has good ideas to promote Whitmores. But Kyle seems to be completely immune to Jade, except when he is smacking her bottom in the office after she tells Nathan that Kyle is not her type.
That all goes by the wayside one Friday night and Kyle and Jade turn the pages purple with their moment of Transcendental Bliss in a luxurious houseboat that supposedly belongs to Kyle's rich school friend, some big time Australian Billionaire from Tasmania.
There are business strategy meetings, Kyle bullying Jade, big time purple passion office lurve club events and then the big break up when Kyle says they should get married and Jade joking calls Kyle her boy-toy and claims she never wants to get married or have kids.
Kyle dumps her like a hot potato and Jade doesn't understand the big freeze out, so she has a mopey moment or six. Gemma gets a ring from Nathan and he complaints that her new look isn't the sweet, adoring concussed duckling one that Nathan prefers from his little woman.
Gemma starts to have serious doubts about the wisdom of being with a man like Nathan, but the Lurve Force Mojo rules all and the two of them elope. All of the ladies are very sad for Gemma and look at her with pity.
They know how uninvolved in relationships Nathan actually is and they see Gemma in love and know that Nathan doesn't really love her back. Jade remarks that at least Nathan married her, instead of pumping and dumping her, now Gemma will be financially secure when it inevitably all goes south.
Gemma's doubts grow bigger after the wedding. Nathan takes her to the beach house at Avoca and after a big Lurve Mojo fest, he gets some inspiration and ignores her for days while he writes out a new play. Then he gets angry when she goes out on her own and she isn't dutifully waiting for him in his bed, now that he is ready to use her cause his creative drive is burned out.
Byron is ecstatic over the marriage, but Kirsty is devastated. She wanted her parents back together and she thought Gemma was her friend, so she has deep feelings of betrayal and Gemma realizes that fences are going to have to be mended.
Gemma also decides that since she has learned Japanese and Nathan is oblivious to her when he is writing, she is going to get a job. Nathan seems to panic that she is leaving him, but if she gets a job that is okay, as long as she us available on the weekends he needs to recover his creative drive.
Jade begins to think that Kyle deliberately tried to get her preggers during their big Purple Mojo Moments and she asks Kyle if he was trying to use her to get control of Whitmores. Kyle denied it, but then he dumped her and Jade is left to wonder what exactly Kyle is hiding.
Eventually a promotional event forces Kyle and Jade together and there are several remarks that Jade finally doesn't look like a high priced tart in her new dress for the even cause she is actually wearing a bra.
Kyle admits that he was doing the hot/cold act to get her to marry him because he supposedly fell in love with her the night he met her.
Jade has been fathoms deep in love with Kyle for a week now and Lenore was the one who helped her pick out her demure, man catching dress and undies. Things are looking rosy as Kyle and Jade do their big horse racing promotion of Whitmores.
Then a woman approaches Kyle at the event and we learn that he is really not Kyle Anderson at all. She calls him Mr. Gainsford and after Jade feels devastated that he lied to her and starts to dump him, Kyle gets nasty and claims that he is one of the richest men in Australia and Jade should take her foot out of her mouth.
Then we get this big sob story about how Kyle's parents died at birth and left him billions and all his life he has been courted and flattered and inconvenienced by people because he has a lot of cash. He really wanted to be loved for only himself and decided to make a plan.
He borrowed his male assistant's last name to take the job at Whitmores, fell in love or something with Jade and now they are getting married and Jade can just get over being lied to for all of the book.
Kyle is planning on continuing to lie to Bryon about who he really is and Jade can maybe keep learning to run Whitmores, when she isn't too busy being his bed playmate wife and having his kids - she only has year left at uni and surely she can work around that to get cracking on the broodmare requirements right away.
We leave Jade delirious with joy or concussed from her and Kyle's major passion extravaganzas, and anxiously await book three.
There we will see the effects of Gemma's doubts, hopefully find out more about her mysterious heritage and Melanie will finally come out of her shell of grief for another excursion in this whacktastic and epic HPlandia outing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2018
Lighting candles for StMargarets, Boogenhagen, Danielle and others for their heroic sacrifice because I can't do it. At best skimmed.
The chauvinism and general angsty nastiness is just too much.
I'm still going to give it the ever wimpy 3 stars as there are tons of HP readers that like
A modern day bodice ripper, Dynasty/Dallas epic generational story. I think the term romance might be stretching it a bit.
I'll check the rest of the series out on the great biblio enabler, OpenLibrary, but I doubt I'll linger.
October 4, 2018
He treats her like shit starts sleeping with her rhen goes back to treating her like shit rhen declares his love for her.
What a complete bullshit.
And people found this controlling rapey shit romantic?
Idiots
What a complete bullshit.
And people found this controlling rapey shit romantic?
Idiots
June 22, 2019
This is usual short HQ romance which barely have enough space to tell one romance story. In this one the writer tried to enrich (!) it with side people`s romance but didn't work well with limited space.
heroine is aggressive hunter which is unusual for 90`s HQs. Hero is cool cucumber. Overall, I didn't enjoyed it.
heroine is aggressive hunter which is unusual for 90`s HQs. Hero is cool cucumber. Overall, I didn't enjoyed it.
May 19, 2020
Desire &Deception
This is book two in a six part series. Here you get to read more about Genna and Nathan. But this book focus is on Kyle and Jade. They have many obstacles to overcome before they get their own happy ending. But you will get to read more in up coming books. If you like soap opera reading this is one for you.
This is book two in a six part series. Here you get to read more about Genna and Nathan. But this book focus is on Kyle and Jade. They have many obstacles to overcome before they get their own happy ending. But you will get to read more in up coming books. If you like soap opera reading this is one for you.
April 21, 2012
Titre vf : Les liens du désir (saga Secrets et scandale 2)
April 17, 2017
Trip down memory lane...
March 21, 2013
it was very lame
September 27, 2013
Enjoyed Jade and Kyle's story, now on to Melanie...
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