Mistress to Her Husband

Five years ago Sean suddenly told Kate he wanted a divorce. She found out later that she was pregnant but decided not to let him know. Now Kate has a new boss who turns out to be her ex-husband.

First of all, let me say that this is not the sleazy story the title implies. In fact, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. At no point does Sean ask Kate to be his mistress. What actually happens, is that five years ago Sean discovered that he has a low sperm count and would be highly unlikely to father any children. He does the macho thing and decides all on his own that he has to set his wife free to have children with someone else. Instead of telling her the truth, he tells her that he has been sleeping with someone else and has no interest in having children with Kate; in fact, he only acted like he wanted to have a family with her to get in her pants. Obviously this is so much better than telling her the truth (rolls eyes). As for Kate, she keeps trying to tell herself how much she hates Sean for what he did to her, but keeps trying to jump his bones. Every time they get together they get it on. I couldn't help but wonder if they talked as much as they made out, they may have been able to sort out their marital problems long ago. I got so sick of all the make out sessions that I started skimming through them. The author seems to have gotten a little carried away with being able to use the word "erection" (instead of all those other euphemisms we have seen so much of through the years). I counted it 9 times; in other words there are at least 9 separate sex scenes (though very few of them end up with actual intercourse), which is a lot for a wee little book.

Am I giving the impression that I didn't like this book? Actually I found it all right, but the premise of the plot really annoyed me. Sean's whole self-sacrificing rubbish was so annoying. He loves Kate so much that he can't allow her to stay with him and never have children, even though he knows that he will never want anyone else. It doesn't occur to him that she might feel the same way about him? Then when he finds out that she has a son, he gets mad at her for "betraying" him by sleeping with another man after they were divorced. This, after he told her that he was cheating on her. To add insult to injury, he also tells her that the other woman was just a meaningless fling... so he divorced her and broke her heart over a meaningless fling? He gets brownie points from me for not having another woman over the past five years, but it doesn't make up for his high-handed decision to divorce he due to his low sperm count. Kate's lack of self-control around Sean was really annoying, too. We see this kind of thing a lot in category romances; the heroine is so overcome with passion that she forgets all common sense. It's supposedly a sign of love. I personally see it as a sign of lack of character development. Kate was especially annoying in this aspect because she has a five year old son to protect. I would expect her to be more careful of not letting her son form attachments or get his hopes up, but Kate is too busy jumping Sean's bones. All in all this was not one of Penny Jordan's better works.