The Italian's Marriage Demand By Diana Hamilton
He has every reason to hate her...Millionaire Italian Ettore Severini was ready to marry--until he learned that Sophie Lang's innocent sensuality disguised a petty thief! No reason to trust her...When Ettore saw Sophie again, she was living in desperate poverty--with a baby. She denied the child was Ettore's--but then she denied the theft, too....And the best reason to marry her!Ettore had never forgotten her. Now marriage would bring him his son...revenge...and Sophie, at his mercy! The Italian's Marriage Demand
H was total jerk but I felt no angst! 0373124910 The heroine was the hero's sister's nanny, and he seduced her and had an affair with her for three weeks.
He was engaged at the time and broke his engagement because he wanted to marry the heroine.
His fiancee (evil ow) frames the heroine for theft with the help of her maid, and the hero believes her and throws the heroine from his house.
The agency where the heroine worked is also advised not to emply her any longer since she was a thief.
So the heroine finds herself destitute and pregnant, with only the help of her old nanny and some dear friends of hers.
More than one year later they meet again, accidentally, and the hero understands that the child might be his.
At first he forces the heroine to go to Italy with him in one of his houses, where he will provide for her and their child, and then when he's there he forces her to accept a marriage proposal.
The hero is still thinking she stole from his fiancee.
Oh, and after he sent her away the first time he got engaged again with evil ow, immediately, so now he has to jilt her again because he wants to marry the heroine and be sure he has parental rights.
Not very pleasant this hero.
He also thinks that since there's a great chemistry between him and the heroine he will have this benefit in his marriage.
After some time the hero, even if he's low on the uptake, starts to doubt that the heroine really tried to steal to his fiancee and wants to make some inquiry.
The heroine is still bitter because she knows that the hero didn't love her and only wanted to amuse himself while his fiancee was away.
There's also a further misunderstanding I could do without, that is the hero thinks she's in love with the guy she's living with, and the heroine thinks he wants to get married to ow, but eventually all is cleared.
it was a good angsty story but there are many things I didn't like.
- the hero was a bastard sob. A liar and a cheat. He was engaged and had sex with the heroine, then jilted his fiancee when he fell in love with heroine. But he was so ready to believe his ex fiancee's lies and never gave the heroine a chance to explain.
- He never once looked for her after he sent her away and got engaged with evil ow two minutes after she left.
- He treated her as dirt when he met her again, slut-shaming her when it was him the cheater, never her.
- He only asked het to marry him because he wanted his child.
- He never gave a good apology after he found out he was wrong about her, and after he ruined her life. He only gave excuses.
-This is something writers fail to understand: when a hero makes a mistake, a big huge mistake and wrongs the heroine, he has to be sorry, to feel sorry, we readers must be able to feel he's really suffering for his mistake, and he has to apologize without trying to justify his actions: the heroine must expect his apologies, and doesn't have to say she would forgive him anything, this is so very wrong. Nobody has to forgive everything even to a person he/she loves the most. There are things that may be unforgivable and they depends of the scale of values each one of us has, so it is wrong to expect that a heroine has to forgive everything and immediately simply because she's in love. It won't do, and anyway she must demand a heartfelt and unlimited apology. Why is this so difficult to achieve??? In this case, the hero basically gave excuses for his behaviour and didn't seem to realize the hurt and pain he caused to the woman he claimed to love.
- He wasn't sorry for what the heroine suffered because of him, he only regretted his false judgement.
- The heroine was too soft and should have required a good grovel, she forgave him immediately, after all he did to her.
- The worst thing of all is that if he accidentally hadn't met the heroine again and found out he had a son he would have married ow and never looked back once. Some love he had for her.
But the book was not bad and the ansgt was really good.
Moreover, the hero even believing her a thief and a gold-digger, was celibate for more than one year and this saved the book for me. 0373124910 Esto fue muy típico de lo típico, no muy creíble. Protagonista odiado. 0373124910 4 Harlequin stars. That's different than regular stars. There was a secret baby. I like them, so sue me. There were valid motivations for all the many misunderstandings that kept them apart. They might have been a bit flimsy and see through but they were there. There was quite a bit in the hero's POV and he usually was aware on when he was acting like an ass but he just couldn't control his tender feelings you know. She was pretty darn weak willed when it came to him. She just melted whenever he touched her. But somehow it was written in such a way that it didn't make me gag here like it usually does in these sorts of stories. Maybe because we are in the hero's POV enough to know that he is having the exact same problem. Evens things up. Anyway a happy little angsty read. 0373124910 YAY! It's a secret baby book!!!
Such an unexpected pleasure.
Ettore and Sophie met and had an affair a year and a half ago. Now, homeless and with no money, Sophie finds herself back in Ettore's life, and he learns that her son may be his. What should have been a simple reunion was ruined by a false accusation, a vindictive ex fiancée and pride.
Good story. Ok characters and of course, a perfect happily ever after. What's not to love?! 0373124910
Rich Italian has a sexual affair for three weeks with his sister's temporary nanny. He neglects to tell heroine that he has been betrothed since birth to the evil OW. Evil OW shows up the night heroine is supposed to return to England and sees the lay of the land. After hero breaks it off with her, OW plants a diamond necklace in the heroine's luggage. Heroine is so shocked that the hero was engaged that the next shock of being labeled a thief is too much. She denies it, but hero doesn't believe her.
Heroine was blacklisted from the agency and found out she was pregnant. She lived with her former nanny until nanny died. Now she's in London staying with her bff's brother. By coincidence, hero almost runs her down as she is pushing an ancient pram across the street.
With this deliciously angsty moment, with the hero angry and the heroine trying to keep the baby away from him, I thought this was going to be a four star read. Alas, this was written when the editors were pushing long - very long - interior monologues. There are pages of thoughts before a character will speak and then another paragraph or page before the character replies. So tedious.
The OW isn't a bit credible - although the H/h both fall for her lies. The hero manages to fall for her nonsense three times!
They were both so stupid by the time the ending rolled around, I was hoping they would put the poor child into a boarding school. Poor kid has no one at home with any sense.
So read for the opening few chapters and then skim like I did to a fairly decent grovel at the end.
0373124910 Re-read 5-25-22. Still just enjoyable the second time through!
***FOUR STARS!***
I enjoyed the heck out of this story, it had all the feels that I crave from this type of HP story. Ettore and Sophie were completely smitten with each other, when Ettore's manipulative ex fiancée decided to throw a huge ass monkey wrench into their relationship by setting Sophie up as a thief. Ettore falls for the scheme hook, line and sinker, causing him to not only cast Sophie out of his life completely, but also leaving her alone, pregnant and banned from working in her line of work ever again. I loved all the hardships Sophie went through before Ettore entered her life again months later, and I enjoyed all the painful angst brought up by Ettore's nasty accusations against her once these two found each other again. The manipulation in this story causes intentional misunderstandings for both main characters, creating an enjoyable story, decent angst and a great ending.
0373124910 5/27/19
I re-read this again for some insane reason and I am keeping the three stars. I don't know why I read it again. I am getting old and memory is the first thing to go I guess!!
3/2018
I read this again and he hasn't been with another woman since he kicked her to the curb. He groveled too after he realised how badly he misjudged the heroine. He was engaged to another woman and she was pure evil. She made it look like the heroine had stolen the necklace and then blacklisted her so she couldn't get another job. I loved how he got rid of the old pram but went back to get it for her even though he was still believing she was a bad person. He was a jerk though and that is why it's only three stars. He was so sanctimonious and such a judgemental jerk I wanted to sucker punch him. He really did love her when I was glad he hadn't hooked up with anyone. 0373124910 Re-read
Bumping it up a star on the re-read.
Let's all be happy the hero has inherited wealth as the evil woman does not just one, not just two, but three end-runs around him to mess up his love affair with the h.
Waaayyyyyy too much slut-shaming and inner monologuing to go to three stars. I understand why he thinks she's a thief, but never made the jump to why he thinks she sleeps with everything that moves.
The hero is a vile, hypocritical, piece of pond scum and blows this book down.
The book starts with the H almost running over the H about 18 months after the last time he mowed her over. This time it's with a car.
BACKSTORY:
The H and h had an affair while she was the nanny for his sister while on vacation. It was romantic, it was epic. Gosh darn it, too bad she wasn't a virgin, he thinks. Can't have everything.
The h is head over heels, and is waiting at a party for the H to show up when HIS fiancee shows up and says that the h is just embarrassing herself and everyone by hanging around. The h leaves only to have a battalion of people show up to her room. She's been accused of stealing, and the jewels are found in her room. Reeling from finding out that her lover is engaged and being framed, she doesn't mount much of a defense. She leaves, is banned from nanny-ing, ends up pregnant....
Current day. After almost running over her, the H takes a look at the baby and the inner monologuing and slut-shaming begins. She's staying at a guy friends house so they must be sleeping together. She steals so she's a promiscuous slut. Hmmmm.
He drags her back to Italy where he slut shames her some more, but buys her clothes so she won't embarrass her son so at least she's a well-dressed slut now. She does make a few attempts to clear her name pointing out that she was framed, but he refuses to listen because, let's face it, he's an arrogant asshat. His unwillingness to even check out her statements plus his reiteration that she was living with her lover were simply aggravating.
The magic penis does its work and they end up together for a night of bliss. He trots off before she wakes to check on his evil fiancee who admits that she not only planted the jewelry but was vindictive enough to ensure that the h could work as a nanny. The evil woman does an end run around the H by calling the h and telling her the only reason he's marrying her is for the baby. By the time he gets back the h has gone from dewy morning-after to get me the hell out of dodge and back to London.
Heavy sighing and angst ensues.
He's back and HEA.
He's awful because he's weak and stupid. Again, he allows himself to be manipulated by an evil OW without even checking anything out. Not to mention, that he WAS engaged to the evil OW when he starts the affair with the h. Son, let me revise. He's awful because he's weak, stupid and hypocritical. Poo. 0373124910 I like this setup. Naïve h falls in love with an Italian tycoon while nannying his nieces/nephews. Broody tycoon falls just as hard, but they’re broken up by a conniving OW… leaving the poor broken-hearted h to flee with a secret souvenir. YUM.
The book picks up 1.5yrs-ish after the breakup when Ettore nearly runs over Sophie pushing her ancient pram with their son Torry in tow. After the required amount of slut/thief/gold-digger shaming, Ettore learns that the kid is his. The rest is their rocky road to HEA.
I liked it, but there were a couple things that kept this from being a 4⭐for me. First, there’re a ton of internal musings… paragraphs and paragraphs of the mc’s thinking through stuff rather than having conversations. This aided in prolonging the misunderstandings, but it dragged out the storyline. I like drama, but I prefer for to be generated from new conflicts/obstacles not stretching one problem when a discussion could clear it up.
Same goes with OW drama… I love it, but I like it to come from the OW being manipulative and crafty, not the mc’s being gullible and dense. Cinzia was evil enough, but she was hardly on page, and the big confrontation took place off page. Not to mention, she received no comeuppance.
Bottom Line- Good, but slow at times.
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