however you said, but for me there is no love, it is only the deceid of harlequin to say any kind of bully from men, toward woman is love (?), when is the convenience of men, they treater well to woman, otherwise if it is not his convenience they treater her like shit, always the SAME!!!!!!!!, even this story is no diferent, after he treat her so horrible since the beggining, how can she feel love? or even, to likes? if she suffered for his rejet. where is the love?
In order to find the love, you first have to understand the hero looks strong, but he is wallowing in fear and darkness. Men are hardwired to want to provide for their family, to want to protect the women in their care. It's in their DNA, and he is losing his ability to do that. On top of that, he is wracked with guilt for having failed to do that once before already.
I'm irritated that the story does not give us more about Diane. They tell us she survived the plane crash, but we don't know about after. It's clear, however, that whatever happened to her, he thought it would have been better if she dies in the crash. It must've been bad for he hasn't forgiven himself. And knowing that feeling of utter helplessness is going to become permanent? He's terrified! Truly, nothing could make a healthy man feel more worthless and afraid, and sadly, people who are afraid have a hard time remembering to be considerate of others. They are stuck in the deepest, darkest pity party that you can imagine. And that is where what love he CAN show starts.
At first, he thinks she's just an easy fling. She's acting like it and doesn't correct him when he says it. He has no way of knowing how special it was to her. She certainly didn't push back to tell him. The next time he sees her and for some time after that, ALL he can think about is HER convenience... He's going blind. He doesn't want to burden her or his child. He thinks a blind husband/father can't protect his loved ones. He probably thinks he can't even take care of himself and it HURTS! It hurts all the way down to his soul, and he sees his problem as so big, he just can't see hers as quite as serious. He knows hers can improve with time. He knows his will only get worse and it's because he cares about her, that he's refusing her.
But the heroine grows stronger, and once she realizes WHY he won't try to commit to a relationship, it is easy for her to forgive him, but she knows they can't become a family unless he takes control of his fear. When she realizes this, she says some harsh things that make him think. Just like her love for her baby pushed her to grow and gave her the strength to face her problems, so does his love for her make him realize he had to face HIS problems, and his journey to go see her was proving to himself and her that he had the strength to try. He said he was still afraid, but it was walking gave hier the strength to realize he could still be a husband and a father even if he was blind, and his walking to meet her was showing her and himself that he could so it.
It seemed to me that the ML had a classic case of PTSD. As a veteran, the VA would take care of that, and if he didn't want any publicity, he definitely had enough money for private treatment. And yes, it is definitely something that can be treated. I have seen what PTSD does to veterans, and it often leads to broken relationships, severe depression, irrational anger, alcoholism, drug abuse, and just about everything that goes with those things. Going blind was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. He was already broken, and definitely needed professional help even before he started losing his eyesight. It was nice that he overcame it, but that is as close to a miracle as I can imagine.
I actually liked the story best for the FL's journey to recovery. I thought that her story was the best part of the book. I also really liked her father (the non-biological one, obviously!). No matter what tawdry revelations about her conception came up (and I thought it was completely disgusting of the mother to leave a diary about it), he didn't have ANY change of heart, and she was still, and always would be his daughter. What a great guy.
Since it is outside my personal experience PTSD didn't even occur to me, but I think you have a very valid theory there. It would be interesting to see if that aspect was downplayed for the sake of adaption to the graphic format. It certainly would have added more depth and understanding to his character if that were the case, but would have needed many more pages to include properly. I would greatly respect an author who managed to do that subject justice in a romance novel.
And I agree with all of the above re: the FL and her father (the other doesn't qualify for the title).
This is a Harlequin, so I kinda expected they'd find a miraculous cure or a specialist would come out of the blue to offer a high-risk surgery that would, of course, be successful, but they didn't! And frankly, I think that's wonderful! Not all happy endings are happy because they are perfect. Some happy endings are perfect because you can really feel a love that you know will get them through any challenge the future brings, and this had that feel.
I think the only thing that would have made this better would have been a 'five years later' panel where we would see him with his dog or cane playing or walking with his son and maybe Zoe holding a daughter proving to us they had indeed met the challenge and were 'living' examples to themselves, their kids and us that love can indeed give us victory over the difficult times. I much prefer endings that remind us that we can overcome and be happy in spite of life's challenges.