2.7 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion.

He the unforgiving one. She the sinner. It was a shame she viewed the whole situation the other way around. It meant that neither was prepared to give an inch. Or hate the other less.

You all know I had to go with a Harlequin Presents for my first TBRChallenge of the year! (hush to those smirking, knowing the smaller page count and my inability to give myself more than 24hrs to complete this challenge). Kicking of the challenge was the January theme of Once More with Feeling, my mind immediately went to second chance romance. Gold Ring of Betrayal is about an estranged wife and husband who's daughter gets kidnapped but the husband thought his wife cheated on him and the daughter isn't really his.

There are a couple things before we dive in, this book was published in 1996, let me save you some hair pulling, paternity tests do in fact exist in 1996! but there are two, almost, throw away lines where our heroine Sara says: 'I am prepared to let you have a blood test taken,' she said huskily,(are you even saying something if you don't say it huskily???) and the hero Nicolas says: 'As I was afraid of having blood tests taken of Lia,' he murmured. 'Because I was afraid of the answer.' . So while I was tearing my hair out yelling “Just get a paternity test!!” I guess they didn't because Sara was stubbornly refusing not feeling she had to prove Lia was his daughter and Nicolas was scared Lia really would turn out not to be his daughter, rather would think she wasn't than be given proof she wasn't. The existence of paternity test is more ignored but these two lines did kind of give a reasoning. Also, Nic has some '70s hero to him with almost (I don't think he slapped Sara as she was remembering the moment but the threat definitely there) slapping Sara and there was a moment when Sara was thinking back to what could probably be considered marital rape. And lastly, curb is in fact spelled 'kerb' in this as Sara is English and living in London at the time, I'm American and I'll never be able to get over that's how y'all choose to spell it.
Caution and all that if you chose to read this after all those issues.

But he was Sicilian. And a Sicilian man was by nature territorial and possessive.

This story opened up and got going right out the gate, readers enter a super intense situation where Sara is sort of dissociate calm sitting on her living room couch as people buzz around her. This story is told 98% from her point-of-view, we get two very short povs from Nicolas, and through her stressed thoughts we learn her two year old daughter has been kidnapped. Sara's estranged from her husband because he thought she cheated on him and that Lia isn't his daughter. Fairly quickly, readers know that Lia is in fact his daughter and that Sara never cheated on him.

There really was only one person she knew who was capable of doing something like this. Alfredo Santino. Father to the son.

Nicolas' father, Alfredo, lives up to his name and is a saucy fellow who never wanted his son to marry a little nobody like Sara. It's never really addressed how the Santinos amassed their empire, Nicolas is constantly away on business and doing business things but when the media gets a hold of the kidnapping story, the word mafia is thrown around but that's the only mention of it, oh, and I guess that Nic is Sicilian, because we all know every single Sicilian is in the mob and this book likes to say one billion times that they love their vendettas, revenge, and possessiveness. Implications! Anyway, while Sara was married to Nic, Alfredo constantly insulted her and made her life difficult, but never in front of Nic, who thinks the world of his father. Alfredo setup the scene to make Nic think Sara was cheating on him but didn't know she would turn out pregnant and now wants his granddaughter in his life.

His wedding ring. The ring he had placed there. Once a gold ring of love, now a gold ring of betrayal.

Title in the story alert! Love it :)

Sara thinks Nic had Lia kidnapped to torture her some more but when she realizes he has no part in it, she switches to thinking Alfredo is behind it all. The first half has all that delicious hate and Passion! HPs are known for and by the 50% mark, the kidnapping is over and Lia is no worse for wear and with her grandpa, which further solidifies that Alfredo had something to do with in Sara's mind. The whos and whys are not really explained about the kidnapping thread, the Santinos are rich and may or may not be mobsters, I guess it's readers pick as to why Lia was kidnapped.

'Have you quite finished?' he inserted coldly.
She nodded. 'Yes.' She felt flushed and breathless, incredibly elated. In all her twenty-five years she had never spoken to anyone like that. It had been almost as good as the sex!

Listen, I get it, I've craved a cigarette after some good backtalk too.
The second half has Sara and Lia living on Nic's estate, “for safety” and these two can't escape their chemistry. We get a flashback to how these two first met, a chance bumping into each other and Nic gets struck with love at first sight. Alfredo loves his granddaughter and after he had a health scare, he seems to be softening a little towards Sara. But really, it's that Sara met Nic when she was twenty and came from a very sheltered existence and he kind of threw her to the wolves when he was gone for business so much and she didn't have the polish really needed to live in his world. Older with more experience, Sara can hold her own now and doesn't need to cling to Nic as much. There was a really great scene where Nic acknowledges that he made mistakes their first go around too:
'I need to know that you are going to be here for me, giving me your support, whether or not you believe I am right.' She glanced back at him. 'With your father.' She spelled it out carefully. 'With your servants. With any decisions I decide to make about Lia. I want your promise that you'll be on my side.'
Something flickered in those golden depths at last. 'You did not have this support the last time?'
'No.'
The flicker became a glimmer of wry comprehension. 'How bad a husband was I?' he then inquired, very dryly.
'Not a bad husband exactly,' she said. 'Just a-busy one.'

How bad a husband was I? Where's that cigarette? an HP hero, or man for that matter lol, acknowledging he was part of the problem! Good stuff.

'Then go and do whatever it is you want to do, Nicolas,' she sighed, turning away from him in disgust. 'For I rescind the right to give a damn!'

If you think I'm about to shout I rescind the right to give a damn! about everything and anything for the next two weeks, you'd be right.
With more character insight in the second half, we get them sleeping together but not wanting to catch feelings, but oops, feelings caught! Around 70% Nic comes to Sara about wanting to try their marriage again. They start to get the ball rolling but the last 20% has Sara thinking Nic is the one cheating this time (he's not) and Lia is the most dramatic two year old because after surviving a kidnapping, she now has meningitis. This causes Alfredo to confess to Nic about how he setup the cheating story and that Sara was true all along and Lia is his biological child. Nic cries (more hero crying scenes please, there's something about the breaking down of emotion) and now thinks he's not worthy of Sara because he didn't trust her. Lia checks off surviving meningitis and Alfredo lies for the greater good this time, leading to a really good sweeping romantic movie ending where Sara and Nic's first time meeting gets recreated. I'm not sure I'd say read this for the romance but the drama delivered and at just under 200pgs, the pace kept up and you won't be bored. ( )

This was going to be a 5 star read right up until the end where I felt that there was insufficient grovelling. I loved the beginning. The set up wasn't all that different or anything but it was just very well written and moving. I choked up several times in the first half of the book as it was becoming apparent how he had misjudged her. Also the kidnapping scenario was emotionally written also. There was a lot of meat to the story. But sadly, just not quite enough grovelling. You knew he was remorseful but I wanted to read more actual words and begging from him. Is that vindictive of me? Still I recommend to angst lovers. ( )

The husband believes the wife cheated on him and the child she had is not his.
( )

Married couple Sara and Nicolas Santino become estranged after Nicolas believes Sara cheated on him (which she didn’t). After Sara (and Nicolas’s) daughter is kidnapped Nicolas tries to help out…

I really liked the heroine Sara. She was sweet, shy, and classy. I like the way, as the book progressed, that she became a stronger person who started standing up for herself. I didn’t particularly like Nicolas. He was cold, heartless, and a total idiot at times. He supposedly loved Sara but never listened to her or took her side in anything. His father Alfredo was trying to break them up, Sara tried to tell him, he wouldn’t listen, he’d get angry. Sara was shy, had a hard time fitting into a different way of life than she was used to, and Nicolas wasn’t very helpful. He was gone away from home a lot. They both had a sweet little daughter (Lia) that Nicolas didn’t acknowledge because he believed that Sara was a cheater and Lia wasn’t his, so Nicolas lost years of his daughter’s life. Nicolas’s father Alfredo, who disliked Sara, was behind the cheating set-up... Sara was to meet Nicolas at a hotel that they frequently went to. Eventually another man, an acquaintance of Sara’s, shows up at her hotel room door (who was in cahoots with Alfredo) and embraced her right when Nicolas came. Nicolas was furious and didn’t wait around for explanations and sent Sara away for good. Since Sara seemed like such a sincere and shy person Nicolas could have at least listened once to what she had to say.

But I did find the storyline engrossing which kept me reading. Even towards the end of the book some of the characters I didn’t like started to become a bit more likable.

This was a very angst-filled read. The hero Nicolas did sort of spoil it for me at times. Sara and Lia deserved better. But he did seem genuinely upset at the end. ( )