| Title | : | Dante's Twins (Expecting!) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0373120168 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780373120161 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 185 |
| Publication | : | First published July 1, 2012 |
Leila wasn't marrying her boss, Dante Rossi, for his money, contrary to office gossip. She loved him and she believed he felt the same...until the reappearance of her millionaire ex-boyfriend. Suddenly it wasn't just jealous colleagues who believed she was a gold digger--so did Dante!
Only the unexpected news of her pregnancy stopped him from calling off the wedding. But Leila wished Dante was marrying because he loved her, not just because she was the mother of his unborn twins....
Dante's Twins (Expecting!) Reviews
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Re Dante's Twins - Catherine Spencer does the third book of the
Expecting series and gives us a little interoffice/blackmail/surprise pregnancy romance.
The h in this one is in her late twenties and the book starts literally with a bang. The h, who works as a Far East buyer for the H's import company is swept of her feet by the powerful lurve force mojo generated between her and the H.
The h lived most of her life in Singapore and her father was of mixed heritage. The h and her mother moved back to Canada - her mum's homeland- a few years earlier after her father got involved with a bad business partner, lost everything and then committed suicide.
The h is now working to clear the remainder of his debts and is also facing fierce resentment from one of the H's vice presidents. The nasty VP is angry that the h got a job he handpicked for one of his friends.
(Since his own hiring is the result of nepotism as he is the husband of one of the director's goddaughters, he resents not being allowed to carry the tradition on. Particularly since the VP is also a cheater office harasser and the h refuses to participate in the pay to play with sexual favors route.)
The h's skill at her new job gets her a much coveted invitation to annual company retreat on some exotic tropical island and the H takes one look at the h and does his best sexual harassment come-on - leaving the h wide open to the viscous gossip of his nasty VP and the rest of the staff.
Nevertheless, the h gives into her Purple Passion Treacherous Body Syndrome and a huge affair starts between the CEO and the buyer. Within three days they are talking True Love for Life and making marriage plans.
The nasty VP, an old boy network aristocrat who brings out the H's hidden insecurity about his lower middle class origins, takes every opportunity to stab a figurative sharp stiletto into the back of the h.
He gets a grand slam slash in when the H is out of town for several weeks for business and the h gets a call from the parents of her old boyfriend. The h was not dating anyone when she met the H, but her old boyfriend from an upper class family had an accident and his parents thought they were still a couple. (The ex had gone off to do relief work and being a guy, did not send his mum a newsy letter.)
The poor ex boyfriend has amnesia and his parents want the h to come support him in his time of need. Since a life threatening crisis with distraught parents on the phone isn't the time to cheerfully chirp, "Sorry, you made a mistake!", the h takes herself off to see the ex and his family and a big photo spread makes it to the gossip columns. The VP gleefully shows the H a the big center picture of the h wrapped in the arms of her ex.
The H has fierce resentment of the privileged silver spoon fed upper echelon and this picture sparks off the H's temper. When the h, who has just found out she is preggers, goes to see the H and make the bun in the oven announcement, the H is an incredibly nasty jerk to her and then throws the VP's nasty remarks in her face.
The h is very hurt that the H won't listen to her, he is going on about how she should have told him about this prior relationship and what a gold digger tart she is, so the h refrains from mentioning she is now eating for three.
(Which is the first MAJOR strike against this H. Mainly because until she slept with the H, she was grooming unicorns and the H knew it. He NEVER goes into detail about all the ladies he sampled off the circulating buffet, but it is part and parcel of his extreme misogynism that he thinks the h should list every guy she has even looked at.)
Then the VP gets another fatal blow in when he lets the H know all about the h's father's past. The h has never mentioned her father, other than that he is dead and so now the H is going on about how the h is playing him for cash to finish paying off her father's debts.
(Hence we get the second strike, this H is letting his insecurity blind him AND he is dumber than a rock. If the h WAS a gold digger, she would have stayed with her ex. She liked him well enough and he is a SUPER NICE person, plus his family was richer than the H. But this H is in the grip of major insecurity ego issues and that makes him an utter loser nematode jerk.)
Then the H earns his third strike when he once again listens to employee backstabbing gossip and finds out the h is preggers, he initially thinks it isn't his baby. After that misconception is sorted out, the h explains about having twins and needing a loan from the H so she can resign her job.
The H demands she marry him, or he won't offer any financial support. The h is devastated, because for some purple passion reason she claims to love the H. The H and his hyperactive, over involved sisters and mother take over the wedding and the h is made to feel like a trampy tart in last place.
The H gets nastier and nastier and dumps a lot of mushroom fertilizer demands on the h. The h finally has a serious think about things when the h tries to see if a lurve club event can sort things out and the H tells her she is a whore.
On the morning of the wedding, the h makes her stand. She dumps the H and tells her mother that her going on about how wonderful the h's father was is ridiculous. The h's father was weak and a coward and no matter how much great love the h's mother and he thought they shared, obviously it wasn't great enough, because the father chose suicide rather than pulling together as a family and sorting out the mess.
The h also explains that the H is more like her father than she thought and she isn't bringing her children into a situation that is little better than an endless blackmail ultimatum and nasty, taunting demands.
The h sells off all her jewelry, pays off the last of her father's debts and then takes her self off to her ex boyfriend's family's lake vacation house. Once there, the h gradually recovers from her broken heart.
Meanwhile, the reader gets to gleefully exult as the nematode H gets publicly humiliated by having to tell his wedding guests -that the h did NOT want- that his whole sister and mother designed wedding extravaganza is off. (Unfortunately it is only a line or two, because sadly CS just did not make this H suffer enough.)
The H swears he will never go after the h, even when one of his sisters calls him out for being a nematode slime swiller. A few months go by and things are going great for the h. Eventually the H goes to the h's ex boyfriend to get her address, he shows up at the lake cabin and very humbly apologizes to the h.
He also bought her jewelry back and offers the h unqualified financial support. The still angry h sends him off the first time, but has a last minute change of heart and calls the H back.
The h and H reunite again, this time it is supposedly a more understanding and tolerant True Love and we leave the two of them lurving it up, probably having baby boys and thinking about a quicky wedding for the big HP rosy sunset HEA.
This one is pretty interesting and the h, when she finally gets her backbone stiffened up, is truly excellent. Unfortunately on the re-read, the four stars don't hold up due to the lack of integrity in the H, but this book is definitely at least a 3.5 for the h alone and a very worthwhile HPlandia outing. -
Everyone at Goodreads know I love a cruel hero, but this guy was too insecure and stupid to be a true alpha.
He's supposed to be the big boss, but he lets his slimy vice-president talk trash about the heroine. And this is right after the opening sex scene of the H/h succumbing to Passion during a *work conference* after meeting just 72 hours before. Hero has declared his love but barely demurs when slimeball underling cautions him to be careful.
Heroine doesn't help her case by leaving out crucial information about her past - and not telling the H of her pregnancy after they break up. But her guilt was unnecessary (as well as her judgmental shame concerning about her father's suicide). She finally grew a backbone, so well done, heroine, but I fear for your future with this self-centered idiot.
Still, there was drama and angst galore. Even though I think this hero is no prize, I still enjoyed the hate read. Boogenhagen and AOU have all the details.
You truly know this is a vintage when the characters discuss the glut of luxury houses in Vancouver, BC and how it's a good time to buy. Lol -
Yes, I know I love cruel heroes, but he was supposedly intelligent and in love with heroine. So I didn’t get why he was like that.
First problem was that due to brain damage her ex-boyfriend didn’t remember they broke up. Second was not telling her father debts and suicide.
“So, you are to be had, if the price is right.”
The accusation broke her heart, mostly because, from his viewpoint, it was justified. They’d lost so much—the spontaneity, the joy—and it was her fault. She had not intentionally deceived him when he’d asked her, in those early days, if there was another man in her life, but she had not been fully honest, either. Meeting Dante and falling headlong in love with him had consumed her to the extent that nothing she had known before—not Anthony, not her father’s suicide and not her mother’s straitened circumstances—had seemed relevant.”
Heroine must have been confused to think about like that. She was virgin and broke up with Anthony a few months ago. There was no need to feel guilty.
“Don’t do this, Leila,” he said harshly, wrenching his mouth away. “The wedding’s taking place on Saturday and I’ll be there, as per our agreement You don’t have to act the whore to get me to the altar.”
I wanted to shake he H and shout at him “THE DUMBEST OF THE DUMBS”
“Maybe you should consider how happy he can make you, Leila. Because praiseworthy though it might be, selfless devotion on one person’s part can do only so much. It takes two to make a marriage work, as you quite rightly pointed out to me not so very long ago.”
Anthony, you’re soooo right!
“You don’t have any choice, remember?”
For the first time, she’d known real anger toward him. “I will not prostitute myself for anyone, not even you, Dante,” she’d told him, dropping her engagement ring onto a brass tray on the coffee table.”
Go girl!
“Is that what this so-called marriage was all about?” she’d spluttered, practically exploding with temper. “Your doing the right thing? Well, la-di-da! Where was all this high-minded morality when you...you knocked her up?”
“Careful, Ellen,” he’d said. “Your blue collar background is showing.”
She’d slapped his face then, winding up with a right-hander that had rocked him back on his heels.”
May all brides have a sister-in-law like Ellen!
“Just as I was leaving, he said that falling for a woman and being her lover was easy, it was being her friend that took work.”
She smiled then, a brief and lovely expression of fondness that fleetingly lit up the room. “That sounds like Anthony. He’s a wonderful man!”
I totally agree with you Leila!
Anyway, of course he grovelled little and she forgived him easily. This is Harveyland and I don’t know why I ‘m angry at H so much. On the second thought, it may be PMS effect. Lol. -
One of the better HPs I've read in a while. Seems I've hit a huge dry patch.
The hero was a complete jerk at times, but I loved how the heroine refused to put up with it and the end was lovely. -
Dante and Leila have a passionate affair but hero breaks things off when heroine's ex boyfriend reappears. Dante has trust issues and even though he wants nothing to do with Leila he is shocked and his plans change when he discovers she is pregnant with his twins.
Very angsty read. I loved both hero and heroine. They had amazing chemistry and even though hero was cruel at times i loved how heroine made him beg and grovel! Fantastic book! -
This was a okay read,really hated the way hero kept taunting and treated cruelly the heroin and blackmailed her for the wedding but the thing i liked was heroin grew a back bone on the wedding day she did'nt go ahead with the marriage decided to leave and not by running but she told clearly to hero she was not giving in to such a wedding and she went away after few months hero comes and she accepts him back they have their HEA which was hard for me to digest
The part i so disliked about the story was though hero has 3 sisters way he keeps calling names and treats heroin so badly when she is carrying his children instead of taking care he keeps taunting and insulting her and lackmailes her for wedding does'nt listens to what he has to say just judges her
Worst part no grovelling
Okay read -
It would have been higher if the story did not jump all over the place!!! Omg I did not know what day it was what was going on who was sleeping with who and the flash back forward stuff has to be done better. However the story in it self was very good. He was a guy who falls for the an innocent girl at first sight and thinks if can all be his own way. He comes from humble beginnings and she is a real gentle lady from a bankrupt family. He wants it all to be perfect but when he listen to the wrong people and let other dictate what he should do and forces her to marry him, it gets really ugly!!! I liked that he gave her space after all that he had done and that his sister gave him shit for it. It was a good story. Enjoyable.
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This book was awesome!
Boss, hot employee affair.
Scandal in the office.
Unexpected pregnancy.
Lots of misunderstandings.
Wonderful H turns into a giant asshole.
Just like in real life, the h has to make the hard decisions cause the H is a giant asshole.
The location of the h’s hideaway is stunning.
The H’s grovel was epic!
Awesome book! -
This is the first book I am reading by
Catherine Spencer and I am in love with her writing!
"They made love on the third day, less than seventy-two hours after they met."
And this is how the story starts. In a plantation house. Dante Rossi already calls Leila Connors-Lee my love. And she loves him. But an overheard conversation makes her aware of her place in the relationship and she remembers the day they first met. At Classics Collections Limited's annual retreat in Poinciana Island, which was rare for a new employee such as her to attend. It is a Canadian import business. Leila speaks Mandarin fluently and is the daughter of a Canadian mother and an English-Sri Lankan father.
A story set in Vancouver, Canada, it has such exotic beginnings. A romance between the CEO and his employee. Even if he was as rich as anyone can imagine, Dante had humble roots. The humblest I've seen in HPland, and believable. Theirs was a family of migrants in Canada. And this also the first HP set in Canada that I'm reading.
But there's a villain in the woodwork, the Vice President, Carl Newbury. He is the husband of Gavin Black's - Dante's partner in business - goddaughter, a pathetic man, who's jealous of Leila's success and also because she rebuffed his advances. A married man and a creep. And he's such a big thorn whose constant presence was thoroughly irritating.Love wasn't bound by the laws that governed the rational world. It simply walked in uninvited and took over a person's life, regardless of whether or not the timing was convenient or appropriate or strictly according to protocol.
Dante Rossi's Italian-Russian, but culturally a Canadian family, is big and boisterous. He has five younger sisters, as many brothers-in-law, and scores of nephews and nieces. He even takes Leila to his mother's, which usually doesn't happen so soon in HPland. And after seeing that love and affection going all around, Leila couldn't bring herself up to reveal about her recent past. They both had lost their fathers, but Leila wasn't up to revealing how she had lost hers.
Even though the meet-up with the families was a success, when a relationship starts at a moment's notice with love at first sight, there's bound to be some problems. And before they marry, Dante has to fly out for four weeks because of business reasons.
And there's another problem in the form of her amnesiac ex, Anthony Fletcher, who's back thinking they're still together. And then there's Dante and Leila's engagement announcement which is still tightly under wraps until he gets back. What a rollercoaster of emotions this read was! And the tarot card reading Aunt Cleo of Leila's is the cherry on the top. Oh, I love her!
She's twenty-nine to his thirty-eight. And for a book written in 1999, Leila is no doormat. She holds her own, and wonderfully. Another character who's a darling is Megan Norris, Dante's assistant. This story has quite a number of characters, and not everyone is important but the way the author has placed them in the narrative is perfect. As Dante himself says, he's one clueless idiot when it comes to women even after having five sisters!
Never have I seen characters who are so obtuse about their feelings, especially after professing their love for each other in the very first pages. It was a very enjoyable read though it missed out on an epilogue. -
A much better HP than the few I have read lately, they were dry but this one is definitely not. Good chemistry between main characters and both seemed like very likable individuals. They definitely had some challenges in earning their HEA: jealousy, lack of trust, lack of clear communications, jumping to conclusions and listening to outside influences who had an agenda.
Good angst. When the H was bad to the h, he was very bad. She, however, was no doormat. Good combustion!
Highly recommend. -
Catherine Spencer wrote a story that was a hard one to read. It was about major trust issues that seemed unsermountable by Dante. He feel in love so fast with Leila that he questioned everything about her life and when an outsider set out to demolish his trust in her it happened. He dumped her not once but several times. The HEA happens but the drama that went before was hard to take in.
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Leila starts up at a company and while on the company retreat, falls in love with and sleeps with her boss, Dante. They're completely shocked at how quickly they've fallen for each other and within a month are engaged to be married. Then, Dante goes away on business and while he's gone, Leila's famous, millionaire ex-boyfriend turns up with temporary amnesia and thinks they're still dating. Leila tries not to cause too much trauma and goes to see him, allowing his parents to think they're still dating. This gets out in the press, Dante gets wind of it and all hell breaks loose. And on top of that, Leila finds out she's pregnant with twins and despite how angry he is, Dante insists on marrying for their sake.
I liked this and I didn't. First of all, I love that this is almost like a "here's what happens" when insta-love occurs and you don't get to know and trust one another. Turns out that despite the love they feel, Leila doesn't trust Dante enough to reveal her past and Dante doesn't trust Leila enough period. So their relationship begins to fail. What I didn't love so much is that Dante goes pretty frickin' crazy and comes across as a cold-hearted ass. And yet Leila kept swearing she loved him. I didn't buy it. I absolutely loved that Leila had the strength to walk away. She saw the relationship for what it was, knew it would be a toxic environment for her children and left. Good for her. I didn't so much love that we didn't get Dante's POV when he realized his mistake. Instead, we get Dante coming to apologize and ready to walk away to make Leila happy and a bit of a grovel scene, but I want to know what prompted his turnaround when he'd previously decided that he wouldn't go after her for all the tea in China. This was a solid and enjoyable story for an HP. Somewhat dark and angsty, not very passionate and romantic. -
Leila wasn't marrying her boss, Dante Rossi, for his money, contrary to office gossip. She loved him and she believed he felt the same...until the reappearance of her millionaire ex-boyfriend. Suddenly it wasn't just jealous colleagues who believed she was a gold digger--so did Dante!
Only the unexpected news of her pregnancy stopped him from calling off the wedding. But Leila wished Dante was marrying because he loved her, not just because she was the mother of his unborn twins.... ( -
The hero was a giant idiot and at the start I couldn't believe all the BS he blew her way. By the end, I just felt sorry for the hero because he didn't really get it at all. At the end of the novel, there was such profound relief that he finally managed to pull it together.
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good read
