#TBRChallenge 2022: The Italian's Deal for I Do

The Book: The Italian's Deal for I Do by Jennifer Hayward

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Presents #3323, 2015, Book 1 in Society Weddings series, Out of print, Available in eBook

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I have a signed copy, which means I picked this up at a conference - and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Wendy will grab any category romance not tied down when she's at conferences.

The Review: There are two types of romance readers - those of who fall for Presents like drunks on 3-day benders and those who think the drunks need an intervention.  Look, can Presents be problematic and feature characters you want to run over with a truck...uh, several times?  Yes. But man oh man, when you find a good Presents - one that sucks you in from the word go?  It's a heady experience that I can't really explain.  This book starts off with a requisite Alphahole hero who is a thundering jackass but once the heroine has a lightbulb moment?  I couldn't inhale this story fast enough.

Rocco Mondelli's beloved grandfather has just died - the creative force behind fashion's venerable House of Mondelli. Unfortunately when he should be focusing on grieving and comforting his bereft younger sister, Rocco instead has to accept the fact that even though he was the one who pulled the family business back from financial ruin his grandfather did not leave him controlling interest in the company.  Rocco has to answer to the board.  A board who thinks he's a hot-headed, unstable playboy.  As if that weren't enough - Rocco finds out his grandfather bought an expensive apartment in the heart of Milan for former supermodel Olivia Fitzgerald - a woman young enough to have been his granddaughter! Olivia disappeared from the spotlight some years ago after a meltdown at New York's Fashion Week - and she's been on the down-low ever since.  Now here she is, in Milan, in a grand apartment Rocco's grandfather paid for and the old man paid her regular nightly visits.  That can only mean one thing as far as Rocco is concerned.

Olivia had her reasons for leaving behind a thriving modeling career, a beyond messy family situation and breaking a $3M contract with a cosmetics firm. She's trying to rebuild her life in Milan with the dream of one day becoming a designer. This would be where Giovanni Mondelli comes into the picture.  He sees Olivia's talent and years ago had a torrid affair with her mother (rest assured, there is zero question of Olivia's parentage).  There's nothing between them romantically, but in walks Rocco (who blindsides her at her favorite café) hurling all sorts of accusations.  She tells him the truth - there was no affair, Rocco is off his nut.  Rocco, being a Presents hero, naturally doesn't believe her - but he also cannot deny that he needs her.  The Board wants to see stability and they want to see the company thriving. What better way to drum up excitement for Mondelli's new line than to sign reclusive model Olivia and oh, by the way, they're engaged!  Except, of course, none of it goes according to plan.

You have to love a heroine who despite carrying around a mess of problems (panic attacks, a mother who should be shot into the sun, and what was behind the Fashion Week meltdown) not faffing about and telling the hero upfront that no, she wasn't doing the mattress mambo with his elderly grandfather. And Rocco is so cruel, so blind with rage and single-mindedness, he doesn't believe her.  As the reader I wanted to shoot him into the sun after the fall-out from the café scene but I was so sucked in at that point I had to see what happened next.  And what happens next?  Magic.

There's a point in the story, right before a fake celebratory engagement dinner with one of Rocco's BFFs that Olivia realizes that the attraction between them isn't one-sided.  That Rocco, for all his bluster, is just as attracted to her as she is to him. That the Alphahole doth protest too much and that, gentle readers, is when the tables are turned.  Because Olivia comes at him with both barrels making for one sexually charged, frustrating dinner date.  From then on I didn't come up for air.

What follows is Olivia working past her fears and her trauma to return to the runway and fulfill her dream of becoming a designer.  Workaholic Rocco needs to get past his own family baggage, his fear of commitment and learn that falling in love does not mean absolute and total destruction of you as your own person.

Rocco has three best friends he went to school with at Columbia University, plus a younger sister, that show up just enough on page to spark interest in the other three books in the series (written by different authors).  While Stefan seems like an even bigger jackass than Rocco, I'll admit that I'm now curious to glom my way through the rest of the series.  

While my audiobook consumption has been on point so far in 2022, my actual eyeball reading has been in the doghouse. Everything has been a struggle and only a couple of books have held my attention.  This is by far the book I've torn through the fastest this year.  Say what you want about Presents, when the author hits their marks there really is nothing quite like 'em.

Final Grade = B