Harper

Foster Girls #1

by GroveltoHEA

Harper has successfully shepherded herself and three sisters through high school and college. Now it's time to start her adult life after years of responsibility. She meets Dante "Rome" Romano, president of the Dragon's Inferno MC. They can't resist each other and begin a relationship, but Dante's withholding a secret that's going to tear them apart.

Genres: Second Chance, Contemporary Romance, Romance, M F Romance, Contemporary, Drama

ebook

Published March 1, 2022

About the author

Wattpad author

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

**Safety: Ooh boy. Not great. Hero is with a few chicks after meeting and kinda-pursuing the heroine. She sees him with other chicks, and on one occasion she sees him coming out of his office with another girl and they clearly just fucked. Later on he makes the most beautiful confession to her face that during a few of those random hook-ups, he called out Harper's name. Nice, right? Then there's another small tidbit that I'll put under spoilers toward the bottom. No cheating between the MCs.



This gave me Jane Eyre vibes, if you know what I mean. But this boy is no Mr. Rochester.

I'm gonna be blunt: Dante is not a winner. He's very crass and I didn't see the appeal of him at all, but Miss Harper thought he was hot, so here we are. To be fair, he's upfront with what he intends to do, which is sleep with her once and move on, but he's just so gross about it. His character leaves a lot to be desired and it's a wonder that Harper falls in love with him. He's good in the epilogue, but I couldn't get past his behavior in the beginning to really buy in to the romance. This was also a case of telling rather than showing the characters fall in love.

I'm not too impressed with Harper herself, either. She shows a tiny bit of backbone before the drama, then a lot of backbone right after the drama. Overall, though, she was a little too weak and plagued by body-betrayal for me to really root for her.

If nothing else, please read Chapters 13 and 14 where Dante completely shoves his foot, ankle, and some of his calf into his mouth by trying to smooth things over with Harper. It was hilarious and the author definitely had fun with Dante there. Chapter 15 was also pretty great with the dragon motif continuing. I also really liked all of the rings in this, especially the last one.

***SPOILERS BELOW***








Dante is married! 💀 It's an on-paper marriage that happened when he and the girl were 17-ish. It had to do with their family companies and something about a will, I think? Point is, they were both coerced by their parents to sign the marriage papers. The woman is in a committed relationship with another man and they have children together; no feelings are involved between her and Dante. The big problem, of course, is that he never tells Harper until she finds out from someone else that she doesn't know Dante all that well and she later confronts him. Apparently the legal documents involved were really hard to get around to find a way to divorce without hurting the family companies, so they stayed married. Fast-forward: before Dante finds Harper, he successfully divorces the chick. Hooray. (I really enjoy this author's writing, I just didn't like Dante.)

[Mairi Swan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good for a quick reading. The necessary betrayal and grovel for an afternoon reading on the spot

[Lu Bielefeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Liked it!
===================
I liked the heroine; she doesn't stray from her principles and values. He fell in love and forgot to tell her one small detail, LOL!

[Izzie d · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is posted on Wattpad and can be read free there.
Please be aware in all these books the Hero messes up in varying degrees from saying something very disloyal to full out cheating, each story is different.

Just to clarify in this story the Hero is secretly married, business only, his 'wife' is living with another man with kids, but he doesn't tell the heroine.
After meeting the heroine he is with others until he cant resist her anymore.

https://www.wattpad.com/user/GroveltoHEA

Note from the author.

Here's what you'll get with my stories:
A strong h.
An H who messes up (never the h!) with either cheating (and I consider kissing OW cheating) or some other betrayal.
An H who gets his a$$ handed to him for said mess up.
An H doing the grovel to HEA! (Always, always, always have to have an HEA between the H and h, but the H has to really work for it.)
And, in cases of nasty OW...karma will be stopping by to say hello.

What you'll never get:
An h moving on to another man in a serious way.
The h having revenge s3x (it's just not going to happen).
The h and OW becoming friends (that is also never going to happen).

[Danny Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for me. The FMC was so OTT about the marriage thing. And then running away like a secret spy is what ruined it for me. All the screaming and yelling from her just got annoying because she was funny and sweet in the beginning. And stop blaming your bitchiness on pregnancy hormones. I've been pregnant and around many pregnant woman and no one was acting so out of hand like these books portray 😂. Also, it just wasn't angsty at all. I agree he should have been honest about his big lie in the beginning, but it's nothing to crawl over glass for metaphorically speaking. Maybe I'm just desensitized. Who knows 🤷

[Ꭿຖᥲ·♡ ྀི · Rating 3 out of 5]

3✯

-dual POV
-insta attraction -> love
-Dante is 31, Harper is 25
-Harper is a virgin, Dante is a hoe
-Dante fucked other women after meeting Harper (this was before they were officially together) - he was trying to pull away from her because he knew she was a forever kind of girl and he couldn't give her that (because he was fucking married, he never mentioned being married until a nasty woman told Harper months after they began dating) ...so he tried to keep his distance until he couldn't stay away from her anymore, he was honest with her and basically told her that he was going to hit it and quit it, she told him that's not what she wanted but she was really attracted to him so she agreed to go out on a few dates with him, after they had sex for the first time she asked him if he was still interested or if he was going to leave her and he told her that the experience they had was something he'd waited for his whole life so he was not walking away, and that's how their relationship began...
-there were several OW appearances before they were officially together (when he was trying to keep his distance): OW#1- he showed up at an event with a blonde but he didn't ask her out, she asked for a ride and they arrived together, she was a bitch to Harper; OW#2- the dean of the school where Harper worked tried to flirt several times with Dante but he couldn't stand the woman; OW#3- Harper saw a brunette sitting on Dante's lap, she was rude to Harper and he told the woman to fuck off; OW#4- at the bar where she worked -and that he owned-, she saw Dante coming out from the office hallway with a redhead, they had clearly just fucked; she also saw pictures of him in a magazine, he'd been showcased at numerous events and functions with a different woman at each one
-he was celibate after his first date with Harper
-the deal with Dante's 'wife': when he was 17 he was forced into marriage to save his family and their business... they never see each other and they never lived together, in fact the woman is in love with another man and they have 2 kids, they only speak once a year for the business (after Harper found out that he was married he called his 'wife' and told her that he was going to do everything he could to get a divorce, she was really happy because she wanted to marry the father of her kids)
-Harper left him after finding out about his marriage, they were apart for 5 months - both celibate (he knew where she was all the time but he didn't want to approach her until his divorce was finalized), when he went to see her he told her that he was divorced and asked her to marry him but she rejected him, he groveled for a little over a month -I think- before she forgave him and accepted his proposal
-surprise baby
-good epilogue: 10+ years later -married with 9 kids (3 of them adopted)

"Harper, straight up, let me assure you, I'm nice to you because I want something from you. And, once I get that something, you will no longer find me quite so nice when I'm done with you. Right now, you have my attention and my indulgence, but once I get what I want from you, I will be done with you." "Well, how can a girl pass up an offer like that?" I rolled my eyes at him.

*******************************************************

"You interest me, Harper. I don't want to be this interested in you – I can only do no strings fucking – and you have commitment written all over you. I've tried to stay away, and you won't like hearing this, but the last two women I fucked got called Harper as I finished because no matter what I do, I can't stop thinking about you. Neither of them liked that. I didn't like that. Nobody's been in my head like this before, so I decided I need to explore this with you." My mouth dropped open before I quickly snapped it shut. There was a lot not to like there. I did not like his preference for having sex with random women who didn't mean anything other than as a means to get off. I did not like his phrasing. And I especially did not like that, while I was on his mind, he was sharing his body with other women.

*******************************************************

"I don't know how not to be honest with you. If I like you, I'm going to tell you, and I knew I liked you the first time I saw you. When you danced with me, I liked the way I felt in your arms, like every part of me started humming. That's worth exploring to me but I'm afraid to start something because I think you have one goal in mind, and once you achieve that, you'll be gone and I'll be hurt. I don't want to be just another girl you've...enjoyed." The soft look on his face seemed out of place on such rugged, harshly masculine features.

*******************************************************

Her desire to disappear from my life and the willingness to do it threw me. She wasn't kidding when she'd said she wouldn't be with me as a married man and the depth of her feelings on that subject were no longer in any doubt. Harper wasn't fucking around. There would be no compromise here. Which meant I either had to let Harper go, which was never going to happen, or find a way to get divorced while still not putting my family at financial risk.

*******************************************************

"The worst part about keeping something from you like I did, lying to you, is I can't take it back. I can't undo what I did, Princess. I can only show you that I regret being monumentally stupid and untruthful, and whether you believe me or not, I promise to never do that again. I've never been this frustrated in my entire life. I make things happen, Harper; I'm action-oriented. But now, the decision is yours, and all I can do is hope that someday you'll see my sincere regret and forgive me and let me back into your life so I can love you like I want to, the way you deserve to be loved."

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic story by this author. Definitely a short story and I would have loved more, but it was really well written and I didn’t feel like anything was missing at the end.

I adored the story on the nursery wall and his proposal. It was a perfect moment. I actually got teary. Such a romantic and personal proposal and such a unique way to decorate the nursery. I love that they kids can grown up knowing their parents fairytale story. It’s just perfect. Dante is one of my top book boyfriends now 😍😍😍

I loved that Harper stuck to her convictions. I saw a lot of comments about how she was overreacting ect, but I didn’t feel that way at all. Honestly I thought she handled it really maturely and was justified in feeling betrayed and manipulated. He knew that marriage was extremely important to her and she would never be happy being his mistress. He manipulated her and baby trapped her hoping she wouldn’t have the courage to leave him when she found out. She had every right to want to be married and had every right to leave him if he couldn’t give her what she needed for her future. I’m glad that she also didn’t just fall back into his arms when he did show up and start making amends. She made him work for it, while still allowing him to be involved in the pregnancy. Overall it was just an excellent story.

I can’t wait to read the next book.

[Dre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Harper got on my last nerve. She came across as very judgy about ppl not being married but having children. I totally get she was a foster kid and wanted to be married, to share last names and have a family with someone, but that isn't how everyone feels. She's allowed to want those things, but that doesn't make others who aren't married but have kids just a baby mama. And while the man your with being married to someone else wouldn't make a lot of people happy, I did understand the situation he was in, and he was a kid when it all happened. She was very unreasonable about it and kept insisting she was just a side piece, etc. She should have said that's what she felt she was, but it came across as ppl in the same situation were just baby mama's and side pieces. Never mind Dante was never with the woman he was forced to marry, and she had a man and kids of her own. So frustrating.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like to read GrovelToHEA’s books when I’m in a book drought. I know what I’m getting: she always delivers. I can count on a brief relationship set up, some kind of gut punching situation, then a lengthy resolution where the(almost always) H crawls on broken glass to repair the damage he so stupidly/carelessly/cruelly/blindly caused. Fairly predictable, but it releases the dopamine this OG Angst Whore seeks in a reading experience.

This one follows the same path! I’ll keep reading her books on Wattpad as long as she keeps churning out these angst morsels! 😍

[Nikki ღ Navareus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story a lot. Poor Harper, got a bit of the run around in the beginning of her relationship with Dante, and I enjoyed every second of it. Dante's secret is a "Big Deal", and Harper doesn't put up with it. I loved how everything was resolved so spectacularly, and the incredible HEA.

[Lara Bayfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is the first in the foster sisters books and it was, as always by this author a slick, fast moving plot. Dante/Rome pursues Harper when he isn’t really free to do so - misleading her of how their life will be. It would have been useful to know more about Dante/Romes family business/ background and why the will was made out so. Also why he and his brother started an MC club? But all in all an enjoyable read.

[Star · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
About the fl i kinda liked her at the beginning but at the end not so much
And the ml he was indecisive asshole but i did understand the situation that he was into when he was younger, the thing here is that he could have solved that way before he decided to pursue the fl,and that also is the thing that i disliked he was giving confusing signals to the fl (like getting jealous )while he was fucking other women so 😬

[honeybee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe this is the early books of the writer but the writing are kind of weak compared to the other books she write. And the girl... like so weak and pathetic. She literally beg to be fuck cause she stayed virgin for 28 years? or 29 i dont remember. The weakest FMC i read in all groveltohea books, literally doormat and no backbones. hah!

[Janeen Simpkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series. Read them all over 3 days. Harper and Dante seemed a great couple but he was hiding secrets that destroyed the relationship. Especially when all she ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. HEA eventually.

[artsandgrace *ೃ༄ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The big bad betrayal didn’t hurt as much because the partner wasn’t this author’s normal bitch OW but the lying was JAILTIME

[Dawn Pressel]

Author writes on Wattpad ONLY, any other site is plagiarized. REPORT THE BOOK IF FOUND ON ANY OTHER SITE THEN WATTPAD.

[Eliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this one/ waiting for torin and summer

[Susan (susayq ~) · Rating 4 out of 5]

2nd reading - This is such a good one! I loved the story he had painted about the dragon and the princess. Made me cry, it was so sweet!

1st reading - I really liked this one.

[wench · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why are her MMCs always so cocksure of themselves?