Desperate Measures
Artist-in-training heroine agrees to the marriage-of-convenience proposal of wealthy businessman Hero whom she just met that night. He gets to keep his leadership position in his family company & get an heir & she gets the money needed for her ailing father's expensive medical treatment. Their wedding night sets the tone to a brittle & distant marriage. Heroine finds herself falling for him despite her discomfort with their sexual intimacy & their distant r/s. She becomes so bothered by her suspicion that Hero's frequent nightly absences from home are likely spent with his married lover that she eventually leaves him. She makes it look like she's leaving him for another man & rents a cottage to make a living as an artist. But her plans go awry when Hero unexpectedly shows up at her cottage & refuses to divorce her. ****SPOILERS******
There were some disturbing aspects to this book but Craven was able to somewhat redeem it towards the end. Hero rapes heroine on their wedding night & sex with him was not pleasurable for heroine until after she left him. He doesn't directly apologize to her for it but he later mentions regretting being out of control on their wedding night. Heroine responded to his invasion with helpless acceptance b/c she did agree to give him an heir. Their marriage was so distant b/c they rarely spent time with each other & when they did it was to talk about very mundane matters. So I didn't get what it was about Hero that made her fall in love with him.
It wasn't until about 2/3 through the book that the romance began. Heroine finally had had it with their troubled marriage & left him despite their marriage deal. Her courage & wisdom to leave him forced Hero to start showing his vulnerabilities to heroine & make some compromises. He acted like a barbaric & arrogant brute with a veneer of civility to others before that I didn't like him at all. His character change at the end was believable but he still has quite a ways to go to learn to be an equal partner to heroine.
Provisionally recommended. Warning: rape.
