Review: Contract for Marriage – Barbara DeLeo

Pregnant and alone after her ex-lover’s death, magazine editor Ruby Fleming’s not about to give up her home to the man who broke her heart—until she discovers her mother left half of the estate to somebody else, and she realizes she’s trapped.
Property tycoon Christo Mantazis wants the one thing his riches can’t buy—the villa where his mother has lived and worked as housekeeper for forty years. That it’s the same house he was banished from after being caught making love to the owner’s irresistible daughter stirs up old memories, and now he wants her more than ever.

Series:
Release Date:  September 15, 2012
Publisher:  Entangled Publishing
Source:  Provided by Publisher
Buy the book at:

Reviewer’s Thoughts:

Christo and Ruby have a past with each other that’s not the most pleasant memory for either of them.  It’s not the feelings they had for each other that are painful, but what happened after Ruby’s father found out about their relationship.  Those events pushed Christo to build a huge empire and become the type of person Ruby’s father wished he was.  For Ruby, it meant finding out things in her family weren’t as they seemed and instead of dealing with them, she ran away.  With the death of Ruby’s mother, Christo and Ruby are forced to deal with each other as they try to find a way they can both share the home they both want.

This was a sweet, if somewhat predictable, story about finding love with the one person who broke your heart and changed the course of your life.  While I’m not a huge fan of manipulation from beyond the grave, it gave the storyline the push it needed to get Christo and Ruby back together.  While I wasn’t exactly cheering for the two of them to get together (both of them tended to act somewhat childish in their “I want it” attitude when it came to the house.  It was irritating), I was interested enough in the story that I had to find out how it came to a conclusion.