Re The Demetrios Virgin - Penny Jordan proves that you can bring the old skool into the new millennium with this tropey of the tropiest HP voyage.
HPlandia Rule #2 is used here in a HUGE way:
Unicorn Grooming Licenses are ALWAYS an HP heroine's get out of jail free card. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.00.
Just go straight to a couture wardrobe and unlimited Birkin bags as you walk right up the aisle to a marriage with a really rich, really handsome HP billionaire who will absolutely adore you.
This one starts, as many HP blackmail books do, with the h doing something a little dumb, but so HP h'yness. The h agrees to help out a friend test her maybe cheating fiance by dressing up in slinky OW style to 'test' his ability to stave off the man eating women who are not HP heroines.
This kinda backfires, because our hardworking HP hotel accountant h doesn't know what the guy looks like, she just picks the most interesting man at the bar and tries to pick him up - needless to say, she picks the H. He is not feeling the love for a woman who presents herself as a prostitute.
It is all downhill from there as the H and h meet on Monday morning and blackmail ensues. The H needs a fiancee to ward off a predatory evil OW who has got his grandfather convinced that the H and the OW will be a match made in heaven.
(PJ conveniently lets us know that this is a bad thing because the OW is a widow who probably drove her hubby to his death with her devious ways, is seven years older than the H and has three kids of probably dubious parentage to boot. Plus she has a really skeezy slime pustule for an accountant and who knows what the OW gets up to with him.)
The h obviously has no problems with the pay to play route and she will be the perfect decoy - she has to go with the H as his fiancee to Greece to ward off Grandpa or horrible things will be caused by the H.
So after a new designer wardrobe with no nightwear added, the H and h are off to Greece. There is some H beratement on the h's shameless hussy morals, but the H's sister likes her and the staff thinks the h is very kind.
The h is even kind to elderly men who get themselves overwhelmed in the Athens' heat - as we see when the h is doing the HP travelogue moment and stops to help a very nice old man who is collapsing and even speaks to his driver about getting him acceptable care.
In fact the only person who doesn't like the h, (excepting the H, who really does like the h, but he is fighting it,) is the Evil Snot Snarfer Black Widow Predatory OW. The Evil OW doesn't know the word quit - she is DETERMINED the H will be HERS!
She has a failing hotel empire she needs him for - plus she tried to seduce the H when he was fifteen and even brought an electronic enhancement along- but the H was super savvy even at fifteen and kicked the woman out of his room after threatening to have the household staff drag her out of his room with electronic device in hand.
This OW doesn't want to hear the world NO, ever, so she resumes her pursuit of the H and sics her skeezy slime pustule accountant onto the h. The H manages to ignore the OW, but the sight of the skeezy slime pustule trying it on with the h sends his blood pressure into overdrive.
Eventually, after numerous OW insults and beratements of the h, the Evil OW makes her play of trying to buy off the h for a million pounds.
(At this point the h is helplessly in love with the H and is valiantly trying to resist the thought of the H's manly manliness next her in bed - as the h has no nightclothes and the H doesn't wear t-shirts - only the h's minuscule knickers keep them both from casting themselves on the Golden Shores of Transcendent Bliss.)
The h naturally says NO to the OW's offer - not for a million pounds or even a hundred million pounds would she renounce her love for the H.
Fortunately, the H's sister overhears this conversation and after a Purple Passion moment when the minuscule knickers proved a very flimsy barrier to unicorn grooming license revocation and a quick chat with his sister, the H realizes that he has been INCREDIBLY WRONG this whole time.
He knows he really loves the now firmly established as a pure and virtuous h and the Evil OW antics are going to get some off page comeuppance - yep, the H is voting the evil OW and her skeezy slime pustule side kick right off his private island. But first, there is the H's grandpa to meet and Surprise!
The H's grandpa happens to be the elderly old guy the h helped out in Athens. He already adores the h and couldn't ask for a better partner for his stubborn grandson.
Which is a good thing, because the H is determined to marry our now ex-unicorn groomer h and in true HPlandia H style, he uses the addendum HP rule #3
A True Alpha HP H's motilators will ALWAYS hit the Unicorn Grooming heroine's target on the first go - leading to a visit by the HPlandia stork delivery service nine months later.
But the h doesn't want to be married for the potential baby's sake, so she refuses the H's eminently logical proposal, even after the H declares he loves her madly in front of his whole family. So the H finally has to be honest and confess his deep and abiding love for the h in the privacy of their shared room.
This H is poetically convincing enough that both the h and I believed him and the mutual love and devotion is a given, as the H whisks the h back to England for a nice, quick marriage. But PJ doesn't leave us hanging here either.
We get an adorable epilogue where the H and h are hosting their newborn son's first christening. The H is an excellent daddy, the H's grandfather is a proud great grandpa and fortunately the newborn son and heir was three weeks late from the delivery date - meaning that he was born nine months and one day after the h and H's wedding. So no nasty connotations can be made.
The H and h are still madly in love too, as we learn the new baby is getting brother or a sister before his first birthday and we leave them all lurving it up and happy for a PJ sparkly pink rainbow HPlandia HEA.