A typical category romance from Harlequin that I read for a team challenge I was doing.

The Good Stuff and the Bad Stuff: While this was a short and sweet book I wish more of it could have involved the twins as the title would suggest. Although they are talked about frequently their actual presence in the book is pretty minimal which is a shame. The plot of the book appears to only be about reuniting two people and the setting could be anywhere. Darcy and Mitch spend a lot of time working but for most of the book I was clueless as to what they did for a living. The setting and the character's backgrounds (mostly Darcy's) could have been elaborated upon a lot more. I would have given this book another star if it weren't for Darcy's character. She puts a lot of expectations on Mitch and gets mad at him all the time because he doesn't express his love for the twins within a day of finding out about them. Completely unreasonable in my eyes which made it difficult for me to be happy for her when everything was wrapped up in a nice bow at the end. Mitch wasn't a whole lot better though. He went from being a wandering soul to professing his love, devotion, and his promise to never leave Texas in a matter of 2 weeks.

In a Nutshell: My expectations weren't all that high when starting this book but the beginning was good and the ending came quickly. I might read another book by the author if I found a free copy somewhere. ( )

1.5 stars. I don't even know what to say about this outside of a cut other than I can't understand what authors are thinking when they write stories like this. It's like they type it up and never read it again.

Spoiler filed ranty synopsis of the plot under the cut.

First Darcy puts off telling him about the twins stupidly in the beginning even though he ended up giving her a perfect setting to do so. Why was it so important to do it the next morning and mess up his whole work day trying to work through it?

Apparently it wouldn't have messed up anything though because he doesn't care about the babies. At all. I don't know how long it's been since he found out, but he hasn't shown the slightest bit of interest in them, doesn't ask about them, hasn't asked to see them, talks about them only in abstract terms as some obligation to pay for. He hasn't once thought about them when the story is in his POV. Only about how much he wants Darcy, and could fall for her again, etc. etc. Nothing about his children. At all.

For her part, even though she is all a flutter about him and might be falling for him again, she does sometimes remember that he doesn't care about the children at all. But something tells me only a modest show of interest will get her to drop her underpants.

He broke into her house, moved his office and life in without her permission because he ~needs~ her and wants to convince her to marry him even though he plans on taking off in a year and only being around every so often. Oh, and he doesn't care about the kids.

She fucking lets him. She got pissy and did start to call the cops like I was yelling at her to, but then one statement from him about the police chief and desk sergeant being friends of his and she backs off. Then lets him stay. She then goes on to accommodate him by keeping the twins out of his hair instead of sending them in there when they're fussy and squalling. She doesn't force him to spend any time with the kids. He just goes about his work day asking for her help even though she took personal time from work. She even offers him meals.

While sitting in his makeshift squatting office the twins show up at the door and watch him twice. He feels absolutely nothing. Only in the most generic terms of being cute kids. He still feels nothing toward them. Feels no need to spend any time with them or get to know them. Nothing. It's so disgusting to me. He tells her he likes them, and not to make him a monster. She says, yeah, but he doesn't love him and a vague sense of affection isn't enough. I say how in the fuck does he like them he doesn't know them, hasn't spent a minute of time with them. Nor has he shown an iota of affection.

She finally lets him know in no uncertain terms she can only be with a man who loves her kids. He thinks to himself he can attempt that. BEING WITH HER IS THE ONLY REASON HE'LL ATTEMPT TO FEEL ANYTHING ABOUT HIS CHILDREN.

Oh and he still plans to take off in a year to go back to traveling the globe and being unreachable.

This is where everything stands and there is something like 36 pages left in this book.

AND I'M SUPPOSED TO ROOT FOR THESE PEOPLE TO BE TOGETHER? WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF THIS STORY??

Yeah, so, not only did this story not start making sense in the last 36 pages, it really just lost all sense period.

He never did make the effort toward the children on his own. Finally, they were like "WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED, DADDY" and forced themselves on him. Then he got into them. Mostly.

He wants this big development project that will take years to complete.

He ~loves Darcy.

He still plans to leave in a year. In fact, when she says she won't help him with the proposal for the development unless he stays to see it through he gets pissed because she knows he can't because he has to leave and go back to working overseas. Except, no. Not so much.

Then his parents show up. Well, his mother. Turns out she lied about his father's condition to get him home for a year. Then he finds out it's not true and he gets pissed off (that's why he decided to squat in Darcy's house). But she's all emo that her oldest son is pissed at her and enlists Darcy to soften him up. And Darcy equates the way he treats his parents to how he'll be as a family man. Okay.

Darcy calls their relationship for the like two days that he's acknowledged the twins' actual existence as idyllic. Oookay.

So he finally tells her why he hates his father who earlier in the story was referred to as a bad alcoholic. Turns out when he was in college he brought his girlfriend home and got her a summer job at the family business (...I bet you can't tell where this is going...) and shockingly he walked in on his father fucking her in his office. Then he runs home to get his mom to leave and she's basically all "so what, next time pick a better girl." So that's why he hates his father and is really pissy at his mother.

Darcy's basically all, "wow, that sucks. Get over it." Nice.

Of course then his father has a real heart attack and his mother wants Mitch to see him. Daddy is really sowwy. When Mitch balks she slaps him and tells him to grow up and stop being a brat. Everyone makes mistakes. Darcy, of course, agrees with this and equates their 48 hours in Paris of two single, consenting, adults having a brief romance as something they "shouldn't have done" to what his father did. OKAY.

But he gives in and goes to see daddy and they take the twins to see them (neither of his parents knew about them) and OMG HAPPY FAMILY.

Except not. Something happens. We don't know what though because IT IS NEVER FUCKING STATED EVER. Mitch comes home pissed off, hating them again and is determined to go back overseas as soon as possible. Except now he actually wants to take Darcy and the boys. Darcy rightfully tells him to fuck off and stop running away like a coward. He gets mad at her, leaves to get moving boxes, comes back but the twins are sleeping on his cot.

And suddenly he can't leave because he loves these two perfect children too much to ever leave them and he loves Darcy and this is all he needs in the world ever.

THE END.

I mean...what in the hell? What kind of story is that? And the ending made it even worse. It was like she realized she was only contracted for 180 pages and absolutely no more but she slow played most of the story so it all had to be wrapped up in 20 more pages of nonsense.

Did an editor read this and say, "oh, yeah, no, it totally makes sense, you're fine!"? Who in their right mind would want a Hero like this? Not everyone is into having kids, okay. Hell, I don't get the desire either, but I can't imagine feeling nothing for mine if one showed up. And he makes it worse because he keeps saying "I like kids, okay!"

Oh, and that cover is misleading on at least two fronts. ( )