*This book has been previously published*It’s always secret passion that burns hottest…Connor and Victoria Blake were the power couple that had it all. Money. Prestige. Secrets. Lies. With their seemingly perfect union crumbling around them, and the divorce papers drawn up, Victoria has a proposition for her soon-to-be-ex-husband: One weeks to explore the passion between them they never let out … soon-to-be-ex-husband: One weeks to explore the passion between them they never let out in all their years of marriage. No limits. No rules. No fantasy out of the question.
Connor lives his life with the strictest control, and his sexy wife offering him a chance to let go and take what he’s always wanted is an offer too sweet for him to pass up. After a scorching encounter with Victoria and an intense stranger at the Auckland Club, Connor starts craving his own wife like a drug.
But in order to keep hold of their newfound passion and claim the marriage they never knew they could have, both Connor and Victoria will have to decide what matters more: Protecting their secrets, or loving each other.
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Conner & Victoria, still married but not for long once Victoria can get Conner to sign the divorce papers ..: But he has other ideas!!! These two were a real trip!! So damaged and still both can’t ignore their crazy desire for each other . Conner IS THE MAN and takes control & I mean he sets the stage for their happiness or demise ! This was most likely one of The craziest bad ass BOLDLY WRITTEN books of hers that I’ve ever read .!!! Superb!!
As has become an annoying habit of mine, I started reading this trilogy with the final book, but I never got the feeling that I’d missed out on reading about some of the characters, so it worked just fine for me as a standalone. I’m also a fan of this author, and have come to expect great reads from her and she hasn’t let me down yet. Since I read this novel in one sitting, until 6:00 a.m., it gets 5 sizzling stars from this reader.
Living in Secret tells about the end of the 5-year marriage of Connor and Victoria, both attorneys, and when we first meet them, they’ve been separated for one year, and Connor has been avoiding signing the final divorce document that has been sitting on his table for the past month. He’s avoided Victoria’s text messages and her phone messages, asking him why he’s not yet signed and returned them to her. Victoria, is planning on leaving New Zealand for a job in London and wants to tie up loose ends, and the biggest loose end is her marriage. Theirs was a rather cold, distant, marriage of convenience, more a business deal than a romance, one in which they shared little but their interest in the law, and one in which their sex life was perfunctory at best. During the latter half of the marriage, it’s something more avoided than not. Yet when Victoria asked for a one-year separation, Connor didn’t even ask her why she wanted it or fight it, he simply accepted it. If you’re thinking that these characters are two cold fish, you couldn’t be more wrong, because both these characters have been, as the title states, living in secret, and when one secret of Victoria’s is revealed, it’s the beginning of the end as this marriage implodes.
One year later, when Connor spots Victoria at a Friday night, end of the work week, gathering of legal associates, he still finds her both stunning and captivating. She never attends there get-togethers, and Connor wonders why she’s there. He can’t take his eyes off her, stunned as always by her beauty and grace. She’s only there to confront Connor face-to-face about his failure to sign, and he tells her flat-out that he’s not in any hurry to do so, and that he might never be ready.
Victoria clearly needs a new tactic, and her closest girlfriend, well aware of Victoria’s penchant for conservative, basic black business and evening attire encourages her to try a new look when Victoria tells her that she and Connor will both be attending a pre-wedding get-together thrown by a mutual friend at his exclusive, private club. Although Victoria is hesitant to wear clothing that is so far out of her comfort zone, she finally does, and when she arrives at the party, draws the attention of, and enters on the arm of a handsome younger man named Raphael, Connor is beyond shocked, and for the first time in his life, he’s jealous. He barely recognizes this sexy, sultry siren in a barely there dress, and what happens next, I’ll leave you to find out for yourself–but I will warn you that it’s graphic, somewhat kinky, and smoking hot. I strongly suggest that you keep your air conditioner running, and let you know that this is a side of Connor that Victoria has never seen in their 5-year marriage, and it’s a side of him that she’s hoped for. The result of the evening is that Connor will agree to sign the divorce papers if Victoria agrees to spend one, no-holds-barred, week with him, a week in which anything goes, and although the thought of it scares her, it intrigues her as well, and she agrees to the deal.
If graphic sex and Dominant/submissive sex scenes are an issue for you, you might want to pass this one by, but for those of you who find it sexy and titillating, I can count on one hand the number of authors who can turn up the heat, the emotional connection, and the angst between two characters as well Jackie Ashenden, and in this novel, does she ever! If you’re wondering what happens to and between this couple during that one week, you’ll just have to read this scorching erotic romance novel for yourself. I highly recommend it. As for this reader, I’m already reading the first two novels in this series, and I think if you start with this third novel in the trilogy, you’ll be doing the same thing. Thankfully, all three titles are available–no waiting involved!