Being a true gentleman, Antonio goes to the PR firm where Marco had a client waiting to explain that Marco would not be showing up. When Antonio steps into the offices he quickly sees that naïve Maria McPherson is being set up as the brunt of the office jokes by receiving the 'prince' as her 25th birthday gift. Antonio's heart immediately goes out to Maria and he decides to put her coworkers in their place by giving Maria a date with a real prince, him. Spending time with Maria soon begins to heal Antonio, who has only been going through the motions of life since his wife died. Feeling more alive in the two days that he's spent with Maria than he had in two years, Antonio comes up with a plan to get Maria to come to Italy to work for him for six months.

Although the two are wildly attracted to each other, Maria is determined to remain a virgin for her wedding night. Antonio promises Maria that he will but help her learn about sex but stop short of taking her virginity. The longer Antonio is around Maria however, the harder it is for him to remain a gentelman and keep his promise. The relationship between Antonio and Maria really sizzles as Antonio tries to do the right thing and fight his attraction for Maria.

A wrong turn takes Jennifer and her tour guests to the wrong castle in Scotland. But the Earl of Winchester, a known playboy aristocrat, is fascinated by the American woman. Christopher Smythe is reluctant to say good-bye when her tour is over and she must return to the United States, but he denies his feelings for her so that she will not pine for him once she is home. He honors a secret that will not allow him to live elsewhere, but he finds he cannot live without Jennifer. He follows her to the U.S. and convinces her to come back to Scotland with him, to live at Castle Donan. She gets involved in restoring the castle with him and eventually finds out his secret. When it becomes her secret as well, she vows to do something about it. Christopher throws her out of his home when she tells him she has taken steps to resolve his tortured soul. He comes to the U.S. once again to apologize when he finds out just what she has done for him, and tell her that he understands that she loved him enough to sacrifice her own happiness for his. He realizes what real love is and that he has loved her from the moment she took a wrong turn into his driveway.

I highly recommend this book. It's a wonderful love story told in a wonderful style. You'll enjoy it.

This would not happen in real life. It is an enjoyable story if you can get past the plot. Both Tyler and Julie grow and learn in this story. The reason I didn't give it 4 stars is that I hoped Tyler would call his parents bluff and Julie gets a new haircut/clothes and becomes beautiful.

I found the premise quite interesting when I read the blurb. A plain American librarian marrying a handsome European prince is different than cowboys and ranches. (If you've looked at Sil Desire titles, they all seem to have ranch or cowboy.)

Despite that interesting premise, the book failed to deliver the story not just because the plot was unbelievable, but because of the characters. Jacob, the hero, has no moral whatsoever! He had a summer fling with Allison, the heroine, two years ago, and he disappeared without saying a word. Then suddenly he shows up again because he decides he likes to possess Allison physically once more and get her out of his system. He goes to New York (that's where she lives), and has sex with an actress the night before he plans to meet Allison. He openly admits he had sex with dozens of women from each country before and after he met the heroine. I can't respect a hero who's promiscuous and disloyal. He can have sex with others before meeting the heroine, but after meeting the heroine, he shouldn't go around and have promiscuous sex with everything that moves!

When he realizes that Allison has given birth to his son, he wants to hide it from everyone. He doesn't seem to feel very responsible, either. From his reaction, I could sense that he was more worried about his family and the possibility of a scandal. This is not what I call heroic. He doesn't treat the heroine with much respect, either. Actually, he proposed that she becomes his mistress because he couldn't marry a "commoner" according to the law. He claims that it is very acceptable and understood by everyone. All I could think was, "So why did Prince Charles and Princess Diana have to go through that messy divorce and scandal?"

I didn't have much respect for the heroine, either. She was weak-willed. She decides she wants nothing from him. Then two days after he returned, she begs him to have sex with her although it was he who initiated sex. Then when he treated her quite horribly after having sex, she vowed that she would not give her love freely and that whoever wants her love must earn it. Nothing the hero did was honorable or good enough to earn her love, but she has sex with him again anyway. If any guy treated me the way the hero did the heroine, I'd break his fingers when he tries to touch me.

Another problem I had with the story was the setting. The kingdom and its people sound like something out of a happy sappy fairy-tale. Not only that, the royal advisor and the king sound like some evil monsters. The way these people acted didn't fit the 20th century sensibility. (such as keeping a mistress while having a wife being perfectly acceptable and more desirable than marrying a commoner) And there was a big logical fallacy in the plot: a prince marrying a woman of noble blood and keeping a mistress wouldn't cause a scandal, but if the prince had a bastard son with a commoner, it'll cause a big scandal that'll ruin the royal family.

If you feel like reading the book, go ahead and I won't stop you. But I certainly wouldn't recommend it.