Experience The Frenchmans Captive Wife Prepared By Chantelle Shaw Exhibited In Leaflet

Luc and Emily have been married for about a year, She gets a bun in the oven and it appears that Luc has moved on, w/ Robyn. It really didnt look good for Luc, He lied about a later flight and Emily saw him w/ Robyn, What doesnt make sense is that Robyn is hounded by the press and yet no mention of them at the airport or the possibility that Emily couldve discovered Lucs lie through the tabloids.
Emily does a runner and the mega bucks shrewd businessman can NOT find her for well over a year! But it seems to be a walk in the park to locate a horse later, perhaps he didnt really expend much in the way of locating her though.


He longed to see his child and was extremely worried/scared for Emily a past situation brings about this fear however you will note that he didnt long that much as he missed an ultrasound for Robyn AND he apparently lacked the funds and know how to hire a decent PI to track down his estranged wife.
Yet he finally does because he “wined and dined” her attorneys employee to get the info, Luc stands by his SIL/PA and claims that Emilys jealousies and childishness has no basis and he even gets a little violent.
Okay what would you call it when he squeezes her fingers to where she feels he may break them

Luc says mean things to her thats the norm in these angst ridden books, right he threatens to leave her while he takes the child and claims that she abandoned the baby.
However, big bad Luc claims he will not abandon the baby and will be w/ him I guess work and hiring a nanny doesnt count remember the whole Emily abandoned crud well how does this seem okay for Luc now At one point Luc claims he doesnt forgive easily, but I felt that he forgave Robyn pretty darn quickly.


Really felt like Luc placed Robyn ahead of Emily, He thinks he has a good excuse but something just didnt gel for me, He was emotionally cheating w/ Robyn and didnt truly seem to be a man scared for Emily He didnt hunt her down.
He enjoys Christmas time w/ friends instead of searching for her! I really loved sarcasm the following line: Emily says Give me one reason I should believe anything you say.
Luc replies: Because you are my wife, Note this doesnt work for Emily “the I am your wife you must believe me” stuff,

IDK if he was so concerned about losing Emily then his putting Robyn first didnt make a lot of sense perhaps he was concerned about losing Robyn as well.
Robyn lied but he she feels awful about it we just dont know what happens to her after her confession though.
Considering he doesnt forgive easily I hope she is kicked out, but I just think he continues to keep her around.


God, I wanted to punch the PA, sheesh. lol It was a little redundant in the heroine's misgivings, It was a little predictable, I liked this HP, just enough angst without going overboard, The OW drama was a little disappointing, she got off too easy without comeuppance, I also would have liked a little more grovel from Luc, That said, the story was entertaining, it got me out of a mini book slump,

.Stars

"Adultery isnt necessarily a physical act, "

This was such a good second chance story and features hot and cold behavior from the hero.
. push and pull relationship dynamic generates most of the angst and hot sex, which I pretty much enjoyed! But perhaps an epilogue further down the line would have been nice.
Emily Vaillon left her husband, Luc, a year ago, She couldn't stay with a man who clearly didn't love herespecially after she discovered she was pregnant,

Now Luc is back, demanding to see his son: Emily must go to his château to play the role of motherand wife.
When they're thrown together the chemistry between them escalates, But how can Emily win back Luc's trustfor herself and their son Three because

ONE
The emotionally remote hero has three separate backstories to explain his horribleness as a husband:

.
His general aloofness in the first year of their marriage is explained by a family history including his parents' of domineering men and their miserable wives who end up committing suicide.


. His specific remoteness re: the wife's pregnancy is due to his undisclosed first wife's sudden death from an ectopic pregnancy.


so he's all about not getting attached to the heroine because he's afraid of feelings and loss,

. His suspiciously close relationship to his gorgeous PA who is also his widowed sisterinlaw is because her enormous guilt over being the driver in the car accident that killed her husband has left her suicidal, and he's terrified that if he withdraws his emotional support, she'll kill herself like his mother did.


I'm only sorry there weren't more offenses that needed to be excused with additional tragic backstories,

TWO
The pixie sprite heroine with low selfesteem has three reasons for abandoning her marriage and going into hiding:

.
Her husband missed the baby's first ultrasound when he had promised to be there, confirming in her mind his indifference to their unborn baby.


. She has "proof" the husband was unfaithful with his PA, This story is kind of convoluted and requires a bit of spackling, The day before the ultrasound, he was supposed to be flying back to London from Australia with his PA, but he called their housekeeper to say he would be flying in the next day.
The heroine doesn't get the message and shows up at the airport where she sees him with his PA, What is missing here is an explanation for why she didn't approach them at the airport, since she expected to be meeting them and there was nothing unusual in his arriving with his PA.
Then we need a scene where she returns home alone to be given the lying message that he's flying back the next day.
At which point she can angst all night before the ultrasound about her husband lying so he could spend the night with the PA.
Which, by the way, he did,

. Her mother confirms that her parents offered to cut the hero a deal on his purchase of their stately English home if he married one of their daughters.


THREE
The OW makes three outrageous and outrageously successful attempts to fracture the marriage:

.
The whole business with the "changed" return flight and the hero staying overnight with her is because she supposedly needs the hero's support after risqué photos from her modeling days were published on the internet, accompanied by rumors she had been driving drunk in the accident that had killed his brother.
Then, just to make sure he's prevented from going to his wife's

ultrasound appointment the next day, she goes into tragic, suicidal reminiscing about his brother, so he doesn't dare leave her side.


. When the heroine visits her husband's Chelsea flat six weeks after the baby is born, the OW greets her at the door and tells her the hero regrets the marriage and doesn't want to see her or the baby.


. In an attempt to spike their reconciliation, she tells the heroine the tragic backstory of the death of the hero's gorgeous, supposedly beloved first wife, when the heroine hadn't even known he had been married before.


So it's triplesstyle HP angst everywhere you look in this story, and I would love it except.
. .

. I can't stand the specific flavor of treacherous body syndrome employed here, The heroine keeps insisting she doesn't want the hero, then he sexes her up, she pants, and he verbally humiliates her.
Either stop the protesting or the panting, lady, You're embarrassing yourself, and it's giving me a painful case of secondhand embarrassment,

. The hero's response to the heroine's low selfesteem, which manifests itself as jealousy of the PA and his dead first wife, is simply to call her on it.
Indeed, instead of bolstering her selfconfidence, he criticizes her childish behavior and her "sluttish" dress, Very helpful, hero. I can't wait for the heroine to start mocking you for your skittishness re: suicide threats,

. The hero's confrontation with the OW over her lies and manipulation takes place offpage, and it's extremely unclear whether she got any comeuppance at all other than the news that the hero intends to stay with his wife.
"Robyn lied to both of us, ma petite, but if it's any consolation, she's bitterly sorry for the harm she caused.
" Bitterly sorry so you're keeping her on as your troublemaking PA Or bitterly sorry because you fired her I NEED DETAILS, JEANLUC! He had definitely erred in the past by prioritizing the OW before his wife, and I deserve to see some vengeance and remorse.


Still, I'm a little excited right now because I appreciate the author's adherence to the older HP characterizations innocent, downtrodden heroine sophisticated, remote hero unable or unwilling to express his love deliciously evil OW.
I'm going to give a couple more of her books a try to see if I can find one without that particular flavor of TBS.
I have no idea why I even had this book, It had a sticker on it suggesting I picked it up at the library book store, which perplexes me, Surely I had a reason for buying it, But what

Ok, the rules for HP need to be revised,

Old:
H old enough to be h's father
h painfully naive
PA because every gazillionaire has a PA exsupermodel astrophysicist who manages his books as a hobby while trying to get in his pants
Some form of misunderstanding because H is clueless about PA's intentions and thinks h is psychotic.


New proposed:
H closer in age to h
h having a passing familiarity with BOB and the ability to say "No"
PA if you really insist on having one being old enough to be H's mother and about as willing to box his ears for being stupid.

H/h actually getting to know each other and, you know, trying to see things through each other's eyes

There.
That about covers it. Would save me from reading about someyear old and her nearlyyear old husband who refuses to believe his PA is deliberately cause strife in his marriage.
Also would keep me from snorting that price tags are hardly indicators of taste if I had to read one more time about her cheap dress, I was going to scream.


Oh yeah. One other thing rules for riding, Never ride alone. Everstars. This was a steamy read but not much else, The H definitely deserved a better h than the one he got, Emily was an average h with somewhat sad backstory, No she wasn't destitute, but instead felt neglected by her family and only cheered up around the stable, She leaves the H on suspicions of infidelity, only to try and return to him again after a year of staying apart.
Initially H is super angry understandably and they end up fighting more often than not at the beginning, But as the story progresses, you see the H trying to make amends/change his ways while the h just goes on trying to make life difficult for him.
One moment she wanted to win over his love, the next moment, she was vowing to leave him all over again.
So every time I thought things were looking up for them, the very next paragraph would take me back to square one where the h has found something new she doesn't like or accept or trust about the H.
It was just too contrived, Sometimes it made me wonder at the H's patience,

Things I liked included the H, the castle setting in Loire Valley and of course, the chemistry, So as far as modern HPs go, this was pretty decent I suppose hence the,stars. But it's definitely not worth a reread, At least for me. .