Don't worry Chay. We can get your pillow into therapy with table-kun. (≧∀≦)
And any doubt I had about Sidwell is completely gone with these two chapters. Him and Jason are perfect for protecting the kids from that ass-hat Edward. Or more specifically, rescuing Arien from him. Cause let's face it. Edward is DEFINITELY up to no good and is going to go after Arien until he gets her or is fully defeated. And since this is one of those stories that has drawn out stories lines, I doubt Edward will be going anywhere, anytime soon.
So Rourou has already become a master and has his own prodigy in the form of his brother. Love it. But he does need to work on his naming skills. LOL
OMG. It was mostly just everyone yelling at each other, the FL getting beaten and assaulted, a bunch of cheating, and just one toxic person after the next. First off, if you are not sure you love your fiancé and are falling for someone else try BREAKING UP FIRST! Mind you, that I doubt Dan would have listened any better had she broken up with him earlier. He just would have tried raping her and beating her all the sooner. And the ML wasn't any better. The day his fiancée broke up with him he immediately ran to the FL and physically assaulted her in his anger! Someone else commented best when they said this whole thing is a mess. Just one giant mess....
Sorry, but no. He actually thought it was appropriate to take his secretary on a PERSONAL, ONLY THEM lunch for her birthday?!? Especially when he KNEW that his wife was worried about the relationship between him and said secretary? Not only that, but he disregarded his wife's feelings and booked a single suite for the two of them to share? I don't CARE if it had two separate rooms. It was DISRESPECTFUL to his wife! The ONLY way that WOULD have been even REMOTELY acceptable is if he had invited his wife along FIRST, so she was already there. And yes, I can see how the secretary would have thought he had feelings for her, because, AGAIN, that birthday lunch was NOT a business necessity and they were NOT friends. This man is BEYOND obliviously and he is lucky his wife agreed to take him back at all! Hell, his treatment of her before then was so cold and callous, that I wouldn't have bothered going on the trip with him, I'd have taken the kids and booked a separate trip for us while I figured out if I even wanted to come back!
I wish his mom had known what was going on and seen how he prioritized the secretary and called her son out for being such an idiot. ML was a massive tool.
I give credit to the fact that he, at least, did not blackmail her into a forced relationship against her will. Was he wrong to order her to quit working? Most definitely YES. And he really should not have proposed initially like that. As for everything else, pretty decent. The misunderstandings were understandable, and easily cleared up. ML had NOT let his emotional hurt and pride interfere with his acknowledgement that FL was a good and hard worker. His initial reaction to finding out she kept the baby from him was understandable. Yeah. The only thing that really bothers me is his attitude that she should be a stay at home mom/housewife for him. Unfortunately, that seems to be a fairly common trope in Harlequin stories.
You know, this had a really good start. I loved how the normal blackmail for sex/marriage/mistress trope was usurped and replaced for blackmail for a game of chess. But then they just had to ruin it all with his not telling her the watch wasn't stolen and using the belief it was to get her to sleep with him from the chess game. I wouldn't have minded him using a chess game to bed her, IF she had NOT been under the impression that the watch was missing, and he had, instead, said, "Hey, I like you, how about an 'adult' game of chess?" Then the whole thing with Grazia was just WAY too over the top. Both her independent action of telling Kathy that she and Sergio where back together, and Sergio basically allowing Kathy to almost believe it.
It would have been MUCH better had Grazia said something like "He'll leave you soon enough, once EVERYONE realizes the truth about you. He'll realize he should never have gotten engaged to you, etc." And THEN Sergio would have said he'd deal with it and Grazia, not let Kathy make the statement, have the paparazzi fake the photos and Kathy come see him, he proved her innocence and they clear everything up. It just would have flowed more smoothly and been SO MUCH better. But nope. The author just had to go with the tropes and ruin it all.
Damn It! Y'all just HAD to point out the Levi similarities, didn't ya? Now I can't unsee it. Sigh. Oh, well. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
BTW, Benjamin was an ass. Just saying.
Gonna be honest. Something about the way he said "I NEED you to get caught" has me ... questioning whether he is really a bad guy and is somehow either being FORCED to work with the slavers. I would think that maybe they were setting the slavers up, but I would HOPE that if that were the case, they'd have informed Shu ahead of time. I really do hope I am right, because although he is not my favorite character, I would hate to think that he was THAT evil.
IF I am wrong though, I hope they throw him to the wolves and those wolves gnaw on his bones while he's still alive and can feel pain!