Vivienne Montgomery and Aidan Kavanaugh were childhood best friends in Galway, Ireland until the summer Aidan came home from school to discover that Vivienne was all grown up. Friendship quickly blossomed into love and they agreed to be married by the end of the summer. Unfortunately Aidan's mother harbored greater aspirations for her son than marrying an Irish lass and one day Aidan he caught Vivienne and another man in a very compromising situation. He ran to England, inherited the Earldom of Whitlock, and spent the next ten years trying to forget Vivienne until a house party with the Duchess of Bingham brings them face to face. Vivienne was devastated when Aidan left her without giving her a chance to explain that she was taken unaware and was trying to get away from the man she was with. She was ostracized by many back in Ireland and after her grandmother died and her father died in a ship accident, she was all alone until her English cousins came to claim her.
She is not pleased to run into Aidan at the house party and he certainly doesn't try to make anything easier for her and challenges her at every opportunity. No matter how hard either of them try they cannot forget the good times when they were children, they cannot deny the attraction for each other, and they cannot suppress the feelings that are resurfacing. While trying to fight these feelings he is also trying to find evidence that Jackson Harlowe, who operates a competing shipping business, has been trying to ruin his business by burning down his warehouse. It does not help that Jackson is making overtures to Vivienne and all his possessive feelings come rushing to the fore. Vivienne and Aidan have difficulty keeping their hands off of each other and when they are discovered a wedding is imminent. But Vivienne is worried that Aidan will never be able to let his anger over what happened go and that his mother will never allow them to be happy. Aidan needs to get rid of the danger Harlowe poses and prove to Vivienne that they can overcome their past and move on together.
I enjoyed the last book of O'Riley's that I read so I decided to give this a try and I am very glad I did as this was a very enjoyable book. As usual, I love having the hero and heroine being in love years ago and being forced apart by a big misunderstanding only to find that their feelings resurface after years. The plot was handled perfectly in this novel with all of the great emotions and angst and jealousy and fears and possessiveness and rekindled love. The big misunderstanding was well done as it was big enough to warrant him running off and causing such a big rift and yet easily explainable enough to forgive both Vivienne and Aidan for allowing it come in between them. I loved Vivienne because she was so self assured, incredibly capable and she didn't allow what happened between her and Aidan to ruin her life. And I loved that she wanted to marry Aidan and instead of allowing her misgivings to ruin everything she came out and told him and prompted an honest discussion between them that paved the way for them to get back together and forgive each other. She was a very adult character.
Aidan was still a wonderful character and I thought he was perfect for Vivienne, however I did enjoy her more because he did harbor a lot of anger against her for a very long time. At times I felt like he was overly mean to her and there was one sex scene where I felt like he was using sex to manipulate and control her and, while it was incredibly hot, it kind of made me squeamish. But both of them handled things in a mature manner and it's always nice to read about characters who don't blow everything out of proportion. The sex between them was absolutely scorching and I wish there had been more of it throughout the book. I also wish that the two had spent more happy time together and hadn't relied quite so much on happy childhood memories ferment their relationship. I absolutely loved his mother as the lying, manipulative old bitch who was incredibly awful but was so much fun to read about. And the plot about her deceased father and the evil Harlowe Jackson was perfect as it was entertaining, mysterious, and important to the plot without overwhelming everything.
Rating: A very great book with two very adult characters who had some great emotional moments but not enough happy and carefree moments.
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