Cassandra Reads

This makes the second romance book I've read that I didn't want the couple to get together in. The other was Diana Palmer's Fearless (Rodrigo was an irredeemable ass!). I really hoped that William would redeem himself, but he never really did. I could have forgiven him for some of it (him making her his mistress or the shares, not both). I know Victoria had a choice about being his mistress or not, but she really didn't in some way - starve or become a kept woman. Not really much of a choice, that.

The set up for this book is that Victoria has been working at the hardware store her dad and managed before he died and someone is embezzling money from the store so she can't make ends meet. In desperation, she writes a letter (hence the title), using her father's name, to the owner of the store, Mr. Worthington. She gets a letter back asking (demanding, really) that she come to San Francisco, with a train ticket enclosed. She goes because she doesn't have a choice.

The next chapter is in Worthington's point of view, making it clear that he knows that Victoria's father didn't write the letter (hard for a dead man to write a letter, after all). We also learn that Victoria's mother knew Worthington's father (who loved her), and he gave her some of the shares of the bank he owns (my first issue with Worthington - he never tells Victoria about the shares, she never had to become his mistress since she was rich on her own (her mother left the shares to her, but she had two years to claim them) although she didn't know. She does find out about them before the end of the book, but not until the two years are up. She learns of them though an overheard conversation (if he'd told her on his own, even after the two years that would have been a point or two in his favor - not much since he's about negative 10 or so, but still).

The second issue I have is that the minute he sees Victoria he wants her. That's not really an issue, but he makes plans to make her "his", even thinks about "possessing" her like she's an object to own. She wants him too, but it never would have happened without her thinking she was poor. She didn't even know that she had wealthy grandparents until the very end of the book.

That kind of felt like a anti-William Worthington III rant, and it was but I couldn't really see past how much I hated him to really enjoy the book. Aside from the irredeemable ass that is the "hero", I liked the writing. I really liked Victoria, she's a little naive but that's not surprising. I just really didn't want them to stay together. Victoria even leaves after finding out about the shares but then she comes back.

I also could have done without that whole I love him/her after knowing each other less than 24 hours (seriously, like a couple hours after they meet!).