Rating 3.5When I went in to read the book I wasn't sure I would like it since both the h/H had a lot of baggage and the hero once an army Colonel and astronaut famous for rescuing 14 people, fell from grace eight years ago when he was caught cheating.
This had an impact on the heroine as well, since like many people she idolized him and had a crush on him and his fall from grace made her question her fiancee and discover that he was cheating on her with her half sister. Now, the heroine is at a cross-roads, she has been fired from her show for being old and fat and she is in the doll-drums, feeling as if she has been a has-been, has a lot of issues with her body and trust. In her new job she feel she has something to prove, she is 33 and almost everyone else is younger and prettier, her job is to hunt the hero Jamieson down and convince him to tell his story, since he signed a contract with their publishing house before the scandal broke.
When the heroine meets the hero he tries to hand her off the check for the advance and tells her he has no intention of telling his story. The heroine is tenacious she sees him as a chance to make her writing career and I did feel she didn't seem him at first, only his public persona and like many people had judged him, taking his name as if it was to mean something. So, she stays in town, jogging with him even when she isn't in shape and sees a different man, man who seems to be adored by all and is very private.
I didn't think I would like the hero but I kind of did. It had taken him a long time to come to terms with what had happened and he had learned to ask for forgiveness from the people involved, his parents and ex-wife and with time learnt to forgive himself to live a peaceful life on his pension, when the heroine changes all of that. She tempts him and he sees that she has a lot of wounds, she even tells him that she has seen people cheat their whole life, her grandfather, father and fiancee.
He tries to show her that he is a changed man and has made a life for himself and is not some hero she wants him to be and is fallible and asks her for forgiveness. I liked that he refused to kiss her or even start something physical when she wanted to because he knew she couldn't get past his past.
After they spend the night together and she asks him the truth about the scandal he doesn't tell her and pushes her away, regretting it immediately but after talking with a friend realizing that how isolated he has kept himself, he has friends, casual hook-ups but not someone he was ever into despite the efforts he has made to over-come his past.
Meanwhile the heroine knows that what the press found out wasn't true and decides to track down the other players to exonerate him and she talks to his exshe tells her the story of her marriage, how she was 21 and he 22 when they got married, she was sheltered and a virgin and couldn't let go despite the therapy and despite talking about divorce, they never did that since she didn't want to because her parents were conservative, then the picture that got out were of her cheating since after years she had discovered she was a lesbian and Jamie took the fall and they divorced and she gave him his freedom, and gets the whole story and is indignant and decides to take it out on Jamie. They somehow end up in bed confessing their love but when they talk and she tells him she knows what happened that day, he knows she doesn't really because that isn't the whole truth and he doesn't know if she can handle it all and be with him.
The truth is he was guiltyhe was a cheater, 14 months after his marriage he cheated for the first time and told his wife offering a divorce but she didn't divorce him and after that he had many affairs, always confessing and feeling tawdry and guilty, he stopped a few years before the scandal broke living in a platonic marriage so when the scandal broke he took the fall because he deserved to protect his wife who had been a great friend to him and had known about his failings, even her being gay as they found out years later didn't erase what he had done and it had taken him a long time to ask for forgiveness, he also had a daughter who he didn't know about from his first affair until she showed up on his doorstep two years ago after her mother's death, and one truth didn't forgive the mistakes he had made and he needed her to see that he had changed and wasn't perfect.
I did like the fact that this book had a lot of depth and that we could see that the hero had changed and become a better person and that the heroine had to work past her fears and the anger she had carried in her since she was little starting with her father's infidelity.