Kyros Pavlidis was a hard Hero to like or even be endeared to. He was cruel and mean to Alice and he only wanted her for one night. But he couldn't even be honest enough in that. After one night he feels it's not enough and he wants more so he offers up a week w/ him. Of course, brain-in-her-pants Alice agrees. Off to Paris they go! Then Kyros has this brilliant idea of putting her to the test to see if she will want his business associate who has LOTS of money, because Kyros' money has always attracted the wrong kind of woman in the past. (Never mind that before when he dated 18 year old Alice for a year he wasn't rich and she still loved him.) Nope that doesn't fly and he finds he is a bit jealous of this man and his flirtations w/ Alice so he claims she is the woman he will be making his wife. So NOT a proposal, but later Alice accepts it as though it were a proposal. Then she gives up her "satisfying" career and pretty much her life as she knows it to be w/ Kyros on his isolated island after he paints a dismal future for her. Once there on this island lies are revealed (yes, lies by omission) that Kyros didn't bother to tell her about. She's upset, runs off, returns, he jumps her, it's all good, more anger again, blah, blah, blah . . . great epiphany and HEA.
We are told why Kyros is the way he is, but I want to know where his father is and what was the fall-out between him and his twin brother which wasn't revealed in his brother's book either. All Kyros ever thinks about in regards to Alice is sex. It's never much of anything else and he doesn't want to share anything w/ her beyond the bedroom. He doesn't want her to be emotionally needy! Wet noodle Alice always gives in to his sexual advances no matter what - even when she notes that it is just a "physical satisfaction and emotionally empty." Since sex is the way he can control her - their arguments never felt satisfactory as though anything was ever gained or resolved. When she does call him on his "quick kiss, slow caress, and dear old Alice will take whatever I tell her" he tells her not to insult him. UUUMMMM . . . that is exactly what he does and he proves it once again later.
All of this because momma left him when he was four years old: Kyros never stops to consider how he is just repeating the mistakes of the past and visiting them on the future. There really wasn't much inkling that he cared for her beyond their couplings - I'm sorry sex does NOT equal love! I hate to think how this relationship will be when he is forced to take a little pill. I can't buy the epiphany that he had in the last few pages when she finally throws in the towel. It was too little too late! If there had even been some smatterings of his love for her or gentler feeling towards her . . . he never even apologizes when she catches him in the lies! It's done and why should he apologize. He never really even seemed to know her either. They knew each other from ten years ago when he didn't have any money and he knew she loved him then, but now he suspects that she could be a gold digger? He acts as though the fact that her family is together intimidates him yet that is what he wants for his future: a family that stays together. Oh and need I mention that she only dated like one guy since Kyros but suddenly all men seem to want her when he has her in Paris w/ him for a week!!
BUT THE ICING ON THE CAKE - she claims that Kyros is not a hypocrite because he never claimed to love her. YET by her thoughts near the beginning of the story this is proven wrong. She remarks "that she couldn't not have loved him. And for a time he had loved her too - OR SO HE'D SAID" (emphasis added)! Yet he still walked away from her because he had other plans and she didn't fit into them. Also when he walked away he didn't plan on coming back since she didn't work into his plans, yet later, when he pressures her into marriage she feels if she refuses him then she REALLY will not EVER see him again and he seems to feel that way too. Did they both completely forget him walking away in the past? So given that he told her that he loved her in the past why should it smooth everything over now? Why would she even trust that since he could so easily walk away before wouldn't that be true now? I really loathe when the H's are pretty much man-ho's and openly admit it and no one wonders about what little nasties are lurking below the surface - aside from his atrocious personality that seems to exist in his pants! I could literally go on and on w/ this book but I won't bore you with my rant.