
OMG. It was mostly just everyone yelling at each other, the FL getting beaten and assaulted, a bunch of cheating, and just one toxic person after the next. First off, if you are not sure you love your fiancé and are falling for someone else try BREAKING UP FIRST! Mind you, that I doubt Dan would have listened any better had she broken up with him earlier. He just would have tried raping her and beating her all the sooner. And the ML wasn't any better. The day his fiancée broke up with him he immediately ran to the FL and physically assaulted her in his anger! Someone else commented best when they said this whole thing is a mess. Just one giant mess....

Sorry, but no. He actually thought it was appropriate to take his secretary on a PERSONAL, ONLY THEM lunch for her birthday?!? Especially when he KNEW that his wife was worried about the relationship between him and said secretary? Not only that, but he disregarded his wife's feelings and booked a single suite for the two of them to share? I don't CARE if it had two separate rooms. It was DISRESPECTFUL to his wife! The ONLY way that WOULD have been even REMOTELY acceptable is if he had invited his wife along FIRST, so she was already there. And yes, I can see how the secretary would have thought he had feelings for her, because, AGAIN, that birthday lunch was NOT a business necessity and they were NOT friends. This man is BEYOND obliviously and he is lucky his wife agreed to take him back at all! Hell, his treatment of her before then was so cold and callous, that I wouldn't have bothered going on the trip with him, I'd have taken the kids and booked a separate trip for us while I figured out if I even wanted to come back!
I wish his mom had known what was going on and seen how he prioritized the secretary and called her son out for being such an idiot. ML was a massive tool.

I give credit to the fact that he, at least, did not blackmail her into a forced relationship against her will. Was he wrong to order her to quit working? Most definitely YES. And he really should not have proposed initially like that. As for everything else, pretty decent. The misunderstandings were understandable, and easily cleared up. ML had NOT let his emotional hurt and pride interfere with his acknowledgement that FL was a good and hard worker. His initial reaction to finding out she kept the baby from him was understandable. Yeah. The only thing that really bothers me is his attitude that she should be a stay at home mom/housewife for him. Unfortunately, that seems to be a fairly common trope in Harlequin stories.

You know, this had a really good start. I loved how the normal blackmail for sex/marriage/mistress trope was usurped and replaced for blackmail for a game of chess. But then they just had to ruin it all with his not telling her the watch wasn't stolen and using the belief it was to get her to sleep with him from the chess game. I wouldn't have minded him using a chess game to bed her, IF she had NOT been under the impression that the watch was missing, and he had, instead, said, "Hey, I like you, how about an 'adult' game of chess?" Then the whole thing with Grazia was just WAY too over the top. Both her independent action of telling Kathy that she and Sergio where back together, and Sergio basically allowing Kathy to almost believe it.
It would have been MUCH better had Grazia said something like "He'll leave you soon enough, once EVERYONE realizes the truth about you. He'll realize he should never have gotten engaged to you, etc." And THEN Sergio would have said he'd deal with it and Grazia, not let Kathy make the statement, have the paparazzi fake the photos and Kathy come see him, he proved her innocence and they clear everything up. It just would have flowed more smoothly and been SO MUCH better. But nope. The author just had to go with the tropes and ruin it all.

Can I just rate this like one of those AITA Reddit posts and say ESH?
Jake acted like an ass in SO many ways, it's hard to count. Grant let his ego get the better of him and refused to PUBLICALLY ACKNOWLEDGE HIS OWN DAUGHTER! (Had they agree to forgo the announcement to avoid rumors or nepotism, I could have understood. But NO, he just wanted people to not equate him to fatherhood and ruin his bachelor lifestyle). Jake's sister HONESTLY THOUGHT that the mother should be FORGIVEN!!!! Um, NO. The grandparents not only chased THEIR OWN GRANDDAUGHTER away from home, but OUT OF TOWN AS WELL, bad-mouthing her the entire friggin' time!!! Kitty not only CONTINUED to support her HORRENDOUS grandparents afterwards (there is mention in there that she and Grant bought land for them to live on and helped them out), but then she DOESN'T tell Jake that Grant his her father. She tries to pretend she is OH SO independent and all, but just lets EVERYONE walk all over her. She is the epitome of the WEAK FL.
But Jake's mother ... his MOTHER ... Now SHE takes the cake! Yes, her husband was a philandering ass himself and did a great injustice to her. But the number of lives she RUINED (including Jake's ex-wife) because she felt OFFENDED over a look she received from a woman who had to QUIT HER JOB because she was being SEXUALLY HARASSED by that no-good husband and then chose to take it out on a perfectly INNOCENT GIRL makes her the absolute WORST of the bunch!
And yet ... AND YET .... This is still NOT the worst Harlequin I have ever come across. And that is just sad.
And any doubt I had about Sidwell is completely gone with these two chapters. Him and Jason are perfect for protecting the kids from that ass-hat Edward. Or more specifically, rescuing Arien from him. Cause let's face it. Edward is DEFINITELY up to no good and is going to go after Arien until he gets her or is fully defeated. And since this is one of those stories that has drawn out stories lines, I doubt Edward will be going anywhere, anytime soon.