Review: Enjoyable story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 2, 2013
3-3.5 starsThis was an enjoyable story. I liked Sydney and Grayson and was happy to see them get together. This is the first book I've read by this author and based off this I'd be willing to try more of her work.Sydney has not had a good life. Her mother died when she was young (in her teens I think) and she lost her father a few years ago. She fell in love with Jacob, who was from a well off family (and of course his family decided she was a gold digger even though she wasn't). They stayed together in college though but she ended up pregnant and had to drop out while Jacob stayed in. Things were still good with Jacob until their daughter was a year old and then he started changing and said he wanted out of the relationship. He told her he was going to take her daughter from her so she freaked and tried leaving. This just enabled Jacob to say she was "kidnapping" her daughter and he used his money to hire a fancy lawyer, badmouthing her to get full custody of their daughter. Sydney's very poor and struggling to get by while paying off hospital bills from her father's death. With Jacob using his money to fight her, she's had a very hard time in trying to get partial custody of her daughter.Grayson grew up in the same town as Sydney but barely knew her. His mother died early on and his father was a drunk who beat him. When his father died, Grayson decided to travel for a while. He's been gone for about a year when he comes home unexpectedly. His Grandmother still lives on the ranch and he doesn't realize that she's rented the guest house to someone until he walks in on her naked. Sydney isn't his normal type but he's attracted to her anyways and can't understand why he keeps thinking about her.Greyson and Sydney don't start out very well. He makes it quite clear she's not his type (trying to convince himself of this) and Sydney is attracted to him but doesn't want to cause issues for herself because 1. Greyson doesn't seem to like her and 2. her sleeping someone might give Jacob a reason to badmouth her further. Regardless of their rough start, Greyson ends up helping Sydney out a couple times and as he learns more about her issues, he finds himself wanting to help her out more. When he finds out about how Jacob has been railroading her in the custody battles, he uses his money to hire her a lawyer to help. Since it would help her case to be in a serious relationship (because Jacob insists she's a flight risk) Greyson puts on a fake engagement with Sydney so the judge would give her a chance at custody. Sydney isn't thrilled with this but goes along with it in a effort to get partial custody of her daughter.The ruse works but the judge only grants partial custody for 3 months and then the issue will be revisited. During that time Sydney and Greyson fight their attraction to each other (well Sydney does more fighting than Greyson) but eventually they end up giving in to the attraction and come together (there's a little bondage but that's about as far as the kink goes). They enjoy each other and find that they like being together. They start feeling more real and Sydney's daughter really likes Greyson. Sydney is hoping maybe Greyson will want to keep things going even after the court date and maybe they could really be together. Things get messed up when Jacob (the total slime bucket) uses threats and lies to get Sydney to break things off with Greyson. She tells Greyson she has to leave and when he doesn't fight it she does (although she hoped he would fight it). In the end, Greyson comes to his senses and they get engaged for real. Things work out and Sydney and Greyson get a nice start to their HEA.I enjoyed this story. I liked Greyson and Sydney and was happy to see things work out for them. To be honest, I would have given the story 4 stars except it pissed me off that Jacob was such a scum sucking slime and he didn't get any payback for his deceptions. He did everything in his power to make Sydney miserable when she didn't deserve any of it just because he's an absolute jerk. He did end up having to share custody but that's not really pay back for all he put her through. It was a good story but I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that he got away with his actions.