salythereader

Rating 1.5 stars
I had a hard time finishing this book but I did because I don't like leaving a book unfinished and I kept on hoping it would become better and start feeling like a romance instead of a dumping ground, where both the supposed hero and heroine are filled with issues. Not for one second did that huh, expression leave my face while reading the book.

First off the hero is an Interpol agent and I kind of couldn't picture him in that role, he goes for some information and finds the man dead and that the clues lead him back to the place he doesn't want to go, home, Virginia. From the first we are told the hero doesn't care about anything, not for the past seven years since his wife and son were killed. What I found weird was that he met the heroine, the thing he remains fixated on that she is middle-aged(45, later we learn he is 45 too). He thinks she may have the painting he wants(it contains hidden information), so he follows her, puts a GPS tracker on her and they keep waiting but every moment he is with her keeps reminding him of his wife Jen, how he met her at 13 and fell in love, their first times, their life together, everything, hell he even calls the heroine by his wife's name after they kiss.
The hero has no problem with lust, he hasn't been a monk but he doesn't want emotion, he has not dealt with what happened seven years ago and instead shoved his memories deep. I found it miraculous that he deals with things at the end of the book and even fell for the heroine, but I didn't see falling instead I saw deception at every end.

The heroine has led a lonely life in so many ways. She was married for 21 years but she never felt as if she was part of a unit with her husband so she asked for a divorce and her two daughters supported her. Now, it's been five years, her one daughter is 22 and another about to leave for college and she feels alone, so she goes with a friend to an auction, where things go weird, the hero keeps turning up everywhere, another guy keeps following her, it all seems surreal to her, her life is boring.

I never felt the connection between these two, at every moment the hero is kind of deceiving her. He soon picks up that she is an innocent party but he still lifts her fingerprints. They part ways at one point after he calls her by his wife's name and tells her how he was normal and how his wife and son died in a terrorist bomb. But he goes back to her because it seems she may know where the painting went but doesn't tell her that and says he came for her. They talk the heroine tells him about the loneliness in her life and marriage and that she will not settle for less, which he seems to be offering. He tells her about how he didn't get along with his mom, his dad who served and was gone a lot, his death at 16 and then how his best friend and future wife was there for him. At one moment they are ready to get it on and another the heroine says she isn't willing to be another sex partner for him because he may have slept with other people but she hasn't for the past five years and that she deserves more, the next she sleeps with him. Weird, the characters words and actions didn't gel at all. She then later sees that he lifted her prints and is hurt but later okay with that? She does something TSTL then, goes to confront the person she suspects and then wonders why didn't I trust the hero. Hello, did he trust you? Not that I am saying she wasn't TSTL at that moment.

And the hero is suddenly willing to put the past behind him and takes him to her old in-laws place where the heroine wonders did he choose me because I remind him of his wife and learns that is not the case. Not for one they exchange words of love and the book then just ends. I was like WTH? This book was so bizzare and boring, nothing seemed to happen in it that felt remotely okay.

I almost gave it 1 star but bumped it up since I hate rating books badly.