i love you though you hurt me so

"tainted love" by soft cell & tainted love by alison fraser

It’s that time. I’m just feeling it.

I need to take you on a very self-indulgent ride through a formative romance novel for me, Tainted Love by Alison Fraser.

When I was in middle and high school, reading every one of my mom’s Harlequin Presents novels that came in the mail, I always looked forward to ones by Alison the most (can I call her Alison? I feel like I should be able to).

Harlequin Presents, if you’re not familiar with the series, are these slim little category romances that could be very formulaic at times, but man did I love that formula. And Alison’s always had something extra to them — an edge, a darkness, a vulnerability, an honesty. I don’t know. They just hit different.

For example, this is how Tainted Love begins:

It was summer when Clare was released, but it might as well have been winter. The sun did not touch her. Nothing did. They’d called her cold-hearted and she’d become so.

WHEN CLARE WAS RELEASED?! What does that mean! Which is to say, I know what it means because I read the back of the book, but still —

“A prisoner of passion . . .” lolol you gotta love marketing copy that makes jokes out of stuff they maybe shouldn’t.

Anyway, as a 14yo or however old I was when I first read this book, I could not BELIEVE I was reading about a woman who had gone to prison!!! And it turned her cold-hearted!!!! I was immediately invested.

(A few content warnings for this book! Clare’s backstory involves the death of her young child to illness, and the child’s father also died from a drug overdose. The main couple in the book also have some problematic dynamics — he’s her boss, she’s his employee; he gets forceful with her a few times; he gets real possessive; he says some shit I do not like! )

The book opens with Clare walking from the bus stop to get to a job interview at the house of Fen Marchand. Fen’s sister Louise visited Clare in prison as part of some volunteer work, I guess like a prisoner pen pal type of deal but in person, and she always liked her. So when Lou found out that her brother Fen needed a housekeeper, and Clare needed a job and somewhere to stay that wasn’t the hostel she was temporarily living in post-prison . . . well, Lou thought setting them up made total sense.

Right away I loved the imagery of this opening scene. Clare, dressed all in black, drab and severe (I imprinted on Jane Eyre, of course I’m going to love this). She had to take a train and then a bus and then walk just to get to the house, because of course she would — she doesn’t have much money, she doesn’t have any family or friends to help her, she’s too proud to ask for any help even if she did. Her “court shoes” are pinching her feet because she dressed up for the job interview but they’re not made for walking in. (Only now, decades later, did I google “court shoes” to see what that even meant, and I see I was right to picture a low-heeled pump or loafer type of shoe.)

When she gets to the house, it doesn’t take her long to realize that someone is playing tricks on her — someone who doesn’t want her to get the job. The gate has been tied together with string. There’s another string stretched across the path to trip her up. The door knocker comes off in her hand. This is all the handiwork of Miles Marchand, Fen’s mischievous, troubled young son who’s no stranger to running off would-be nannies. Clare just got out of PRISON tho so she’s not one to be bothered by childish pranks. She’s just like, “Nice try!” and keeps going.

Since Clare can’t summon anyone at the door, she walks around the side of the house, where she can overhear a conversation between Fen and Louise through an open window. Fen is being very sarcastic and cynical about the idea of hiring an ex-con, and Louise bless her heart is NOT helping because she keeps saying things like “she’s innocent!” and then “she’s a reformed character!” and Fen is like which is it because if she’s innocent then she can’t be reformed now can she.

He also calls his dead wife (Miles’ mom) a bitch at one point, which . . . isn’t great. Older romance novels can be hard to read because they contain some vestiges of things that were way more acceptable thirty years ago (not that you don’t still run across them now, oof), and Fen’s casual misogyny at times definitely falls into that category. If it helps, Louise is like you shouldn’t call her that and Fen is like, why because she’s dead? I called her that when she was alive. Ah, that probably doesn’t help, huh?

OF COURSE we get the classic moment where he just keeps talking and saying nasty things about Louise’s charity case who couldn’t even be bothered to show up on time for her interview, and meanwhile Lou has spotted Clare outside the window and is like, errr . . . uhhhh . . . . I don’t care if this type of “person overhears you saying something bad” scene has been done to death, I love it every time. (I even wrote a moment like this into The Art of Catching Feelings.)

The tension between Clare and Fen crackles, and I love their banter in this scene. He’s obviously a man used to being in control and he’s immediately on his back foot with her, partly because he’s low-key embarrassed to have been caught out like that (even if he would never admit it), and partly because Claire completely disarms him. She’s younger than he expected, prettier than he expected (he doesn’t say so, but you know he’s thinking it), and so blunt and straightforward he doesn’t know what to do with her. “If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t employ me either,” she says to him, and you can tell he’s like !!!! I cannot believe she’s not even trying for this job and also she’s kind of dryly funny?

Fen leaves the room at one point and his son Miles comes up to the window to fuck with Clare some more. Miles is 11 years old, spent the last several years living in America with a flighty mother and her new boyfriend who ignored him, and then after they died in a car accident was abruptly moved to England to live with his father who clearly doesn’t fully know how to handle him. No wonder Miles is troubled!

He does everything he can to push Clare’s buttons, but once again she isn’t perturbed. Clare immediately clocks what’s going on with Miles, probably because she senses a kindred spirit. Game recognizes game sort of thing, but in a depressed, self-loathing sort of way. Clare suspected the boy liked nobody right at the moment, she thinks at one point — including himself. But Clare has also been through it, and has no time or energy to deal with Miles. She’s obviously very protective of her heart — she’s not going to get too attached to this lonely child, not even for the half hour she’s going to be at that house. You also get a hint of some of what might’ve been in Clare’s past when she thinks, She didn’t have too much sympathy for poor little rich boys — not any more.

Fen comes back with tea (part of why I loved these Harlequin Presents novels — they were almost always VERY British, lots of jumpers and whilst and court shoes). He asks Clare if she has any questions and of course she’s like, “No.” She just wants to get out of there. He says okay, at least let him give her a ride back to the bus station.

But while she’s waiting for him to get the keys, Miles comes around again and this time wants to report on what his dad and aunt are arguing about in the kitchen. It’s a sweet moment, actually, because for all Miles’ childish bravado he clearly does like Clare — he appreciates her bluntness and honesty with him, that she doesn’t take his shit and that she’s not phony like so many other adults are. This is his way of trying to connect with her, of showing her that he’s on her side, but instead he basically just reveals that his dad is busy insinuating that Clare clearly doesn’t need this job and might just turn to prostitution (!!!!) Like! What a toxic way to acknowledge that you found a woman pretty!!!!

Obviously my 2024 brain is one giant yikes face at this point — hell, even my unformed late ‘90s brain was one giant yikes face at this! At the same time, I really can’t emphasize how pervasive this kind of shit was in romance novels and how much your eyeballs just kind of skimmed over it while reading. Scary!

This brought about more tropes that feel very ‘90s romance to me: her angrily saying she’ll walk to the bus stop, thanks, him driving up beside her and saying don’t be a fool get in the car, her stubbornly refusing, they were ALWAYS putting hands on each other in these books in ways that are kinda wild to me now, him grabbing her by the upper arms, her slapping him at one point, it was all kinds of drama and there I was 14 years old and just taking it all in wide-eyed.

I’m really not trying to make excuses for any of this behavior. But I remember reading other books and being really turned off by how alpha the man was, not wanting to continue if he was going to act like a jackass the whole time. I think part of what made Alison’s books work for me is that the women always felt like they could handle themselves. Clare ends this scene by basically telling him to shove his job, and I was like, hell yeah!!! Tell it, Clare!!!

The first chapter (yes, I’m sorry, I’m only through one chapter so far . . .) ends with a banger just like it starts:

And that was what she was. Clare Mary Anderson. Number 67904, C Wing, H.M. Prison, Marsh Green, Sussex. Category B prisoner. Convicted of a variety of offenses.

Guilty of some, too.

GUILTY OF SOME, TOO!!!!! I’m strapped in, I’m ready.

Cut to: a few weeks later. Louise shows up at Clare’s hostel again, with a surprising offer — turns out that Fen did hire someone else for the housekeeping job, but Miles ran her off with a dead frog in the bed (“I don’t know where he got such an idea from,” Lou thinks, and Clare is like, oh, I do, because she’s the one who gave it to him. She and Miles, already partners in crime!). Fen is at his wit’s end and debating whether Miles needs to be sent off to boarding school, but Miles said he would behave on one condition . . . if Fen hired Clare!

Louise fills Clare in on some of the backstory between Fen and Miles. Basically, there was a really ugly custody battle which Fen’s late wife won solely based on having a very rich father who bankrolled the whole thing and wanted to preserve Miles as his heir. And then Miles had a trust that the mom wanted control over, and . . . you get the gist! While I still think Fen should not go around calling women bitches, you clearly get the sense that Miles’ mom was a negligent and selfish mother and that Fen wants to mend his relationship with his son after being involuntarily parted from him but doesn’t fully know how.

So Clare agrees to take the job because like, what else is she going to do? Louise can’t bear watching Clare pack all her worldly belongings in a single suitcase and offers to help, maybe buy her some clothes, but Clare is way too closed off for that. “She didn’t want to open up. She wanted to stay as she was, locked up tight, safe from thought or feeling.” If you’ve read my books at all, you can probably see why I was so drawn to Clare (or why I write the books I do!). God, I feel this.

For all that, Fen is still somewhat surprised when Lou actually brings Clare back with her, because he remembers full well how their last meeting ended and it wasn’t great. But he sets Clare up in her attic room, which she’s charmingly pleased by — a space all her own! and it’s quite cozy! — but of course she doesn’t show that. In fact, he catches a sour look on her face because she happens to have a memory of something else, and is left again with the impression that she’s rude and ungrateful and doesn’t like him very much.

A lot more of Clare’s background gets filled in here, although there are still gaps that intrigued me so much as I read the book for the first time! Just WHAT did Clare do to land in prison! There’s a hint that it might’ve involved theft, it might’ve involved drugs somehow, and she seems to have had a child at one point but clearly doesn’t have a child now. All you get at this point is that Clare’s parents worked on an estate — her mother as a housekeeper, her father in the stables. And Clare clearly has a lot of bitterness about when “the help” is treated like “part of the family” (aka when the rich landowners need you and it behooves them to keep you close) and when they’re not (aka when your housekeeper gets cancer and is no longer useful to you, when her daughter falls in love with your Fuckboy Son who has to marry the daughter of a duke instead).

Clare’s first month on the job is only meant to be a trial period, and it seems to go moderately well. She annoys Fen by calling him “sir” too much; he’s brusque and dismissive of her; Miles continues to try to shock her but also just hangs around the kitchen, bored and sometimes sullen but obviously looking for companionship. I think one of my favorite parts of this book is Miles — he really does read like an 11-year-old to me, having kids around that age myself. We love to tell our son how much he wants to make his boredom our problem lol with the way he’s always flopping around and coming in and out of the room. But there’s something sweet about it, too, the way kids obviously just want to hang out with you even if they don’t seem to want to do anything or say anything.

At the end of the month, Fen calls Clare into his office. They’re at cross purposes, because he’s intending to offer her the job on a permanent basis, but she thinks he’s about to let her go — the fact that he’s never said anything nice about the job she’s doing, coupled with a phone call from a domestic hiring agency, led her to believe that he was already looking for a replacement. They have one of their tense, prickly standoffs, where he ONCE AGAIN brings up her impending career in sex work (I am begging you, Fen, find something else to fixate on!) and she once again refuses to acknowledge that she likes or needs the job in any way. He ONCE AGAIN grabs her by the upper arms, which is just WILD behavior to me coming from a man you don’t have a touching kind of relationship with much less your boss, but at least this time I guess he apologizes?? He also notices that she’s very thin, and says from now on he wants her to eat her meals with him and Miles. (This is so paternalistic, I know!)

The next chapter (we’re at 4 out of 9 now, if you’ve read this far bless you and if you haven’t I don’t blame you) sees Miles coming home from a horse riding lesson that he’s really jazzed about. It’s sweet, seeing him more boyish and excited, full of stories to tell Clare and starting every other sentence with “Dad says . . .” in a way that lets her know some of that rift is starting to heal. He does make a crack about how nobody wanted him, including his dad, and she’s like hmmmm should I let that go? but then she just tells him actually, that’s not true, your dad fought for you in a custody battle but the judge ruled against him. I like that this shows some of Clare’s softening — she’s invested in this father-son unit, whether she wants to admit it or not, and she’s also a very fair-minded person who can’t let Miles believe something untrue about his dad, even if she’s not always sure she likes the man.

We also get more flashbacks about Clare’s past here, where you learn that she got pregnant at 17 by the Fuckboy Son from that estate where she grew up. Her mom gives her money for an abortion — which she later finds out was directly from the Man of the Estate himself, because he no more wanted a bastard grandson running around than her mom did. But instead Clare split and raised the kid on her own. Later, her mom died of cancer, and then the kid ended up sick with a rare blood disease that she needed a lot of money to help treat. It was only then that she went to back to Fuckboy (who’s married to his duke’s daughter by then) to say, look, he’s your son, he’s sick, I need money. Fuckboy says he can’t give it to her and his life is a mess but then comes back later to say, okay, I have a plan. It’s convoluted and involves selling a horse and he’s looking incredibly strung out and this is where you start to think, ahhhh I may have some idea what she went to prison for.

Clare is bringing herself close to tears even thinking about it (so much for locking herself away from all feelings!!) when Fen walks into the kitchen. He asks her what’s wrong and she predictably tries to blame it on cutting onions, and he’s like, “I’m not much of a cook, but that looks more like a potato to me.” Which is very cute to me for some reason. He doesn’t push it, when she insists nothing is wrong, but you can tell he’s Watching Her. He’s trying to Figure Her Out. These are my kryptonite in romance novels.

Clare eats dinner with them, as instructed, and it comes up that she doesn’t have her driver’s license. After dinner, Fen fixes her a cup of coffee and offers to give her lessons himself, which of course makes her uncomfortable on several levels. For one, even the coffee feels weird — it’s too egalitarian, too much like she’s a part of the family, which is what she’s not trying to be. And then the idea of driving lessons with him make her nervous, although she doesn’t quite know why. But he points out that it would be helpful to him, to have a housekeeper who can also drive, and she knows there’s no getting around it.

Until they go for the driving lesson the next day and she’s like oh right, NOW I remember why I was feeling so unsettled by the idea:

Her smile faded as their eyes caught and held, and her heart forgot to beat for a second or two. It was then that she realized what she’d dreaded. Not the lessons. Not driving. Not the professor’s contempt. Or his anger. But this — a sudden, undeniable awareness of him as a man.

I love a car scene. The forced proximity of it! Several key scenes in The Art of Catching Feelings take place in a car, and there’s a reason for that. There’s just something so intimate about being in such a confined space with someone, in seeing how someone drives, in seeing how they keep their vehicle. And it feels like conversations can be different in a car somehow — like because you’re not always looking at each other, sometimes you can say stuff you might not otherwise.

I also love “driving lessons” as a trope and they really work here because this is one of the first times that Clare thinks Fen might . . . actually not be that bad. He’s very patient and encouraging as a teacher, and although they spark off each other a bit they have some moments of real understanding, too.

Then, when she’s like okay this is ENOUGH intimacy and vulnerability thank you very much, instead of taking her home he takes her to a pub for lunch. It’s a simple, practical solution — it would take much longer to get home and cook something — but it’s oddly poignant to her because she’s never actually been on a date before! Her relationship with Fuckboy (sorry, this is just what I’ve decided his name should be! He does have a name in the book but Fuckboy suits him just fine) was all conducted in secret, and then of course she was in prison. So while her boss taking her to a pub is far from an actual date it still strikes her as similar in kind of a melancholy way.

And they actually do have a very charming little date! Not that either of them would call it that. But he tells her about his time at boarding school and how he hated it, they debate politics (you don’t get to hear what they actually said, but I find it encouraging to know that they talked about it! these feel like important things to know about a person!), they come up with cute backstories for people as they people-watch. It gets serious for only a minute, when he tries to compliment her on bringing Miles out of his shell and she shuts it down. And he’s like, why don’t you want people to think well of you? and she’s like, “I just don’t want people counting on me,” and he says, “Should I read that as some kind of warning?” You get the sense that he’s starting to rely on her, too, the same way that she can’t help but be attached to him and Miles — and not just in an employment context.

He also whiffs it at the end, when he asks her what she might’ve dreamed of doing as a career and she mentions wanting to study 18th century English literature. He laughs — more out of surprise than anything else — but she’s SO hurt by it. She just shuts right back down. It took a lot of vulnerability for her to even share that with him, so when he laughs — especially him, a learned professor with a big house and no criminal record — she closes up again. He tries to apologize very sincerely by saying he’s an insensitive idiot sometimes, but it’s too late. The mood is broken and she’s back in Robot Employee Clare mode.

As time goes on, though, she can’t help but get more entrenched in the family life. If she “forgets” to set a place for herself at the table (read: purposefully doesn’t), he goes and gets a plate and does it for her. They go grocery shopping together. They go out with Miles and when the subject of a computer comes up, Clare advocates for Miles. Miles desperately wants a computer for his birthday, but Fen is opposed since he had to basically wean Miles off of his computer addiction after that was how Miles spent all his time while living with his neglectful mother. (This is 1994 btw, so I love the idea of Miles like . . . playing pixel-y little games? Going on BBS’? Who knows. I got the computer taken away as a punishment MANY TIMES in those mid- to late nineties years, so no judgment from me.)

Fen obviously listens to Clare, and values her opinion, because he softens enough to tell Miles that he’s getting a computer for his birthday (WITH restrictions, of course!) and he basically has Clare to thank for it. Miles kisses Clare on the cheek in thanks, and Fen murmurs a little, “Lucky him.”

LUCKY HIM!!!!!!!!!

This is another microtrope I realized I love. She’s like, petting the cat or snuggling into a blanket or sharing a chaste platonic embrace and he’s like to BE that cat, to BE that blanket, to BE in that embrace. I don’t know, it hits for me. I also want to take a timeout to say that when I read this as a teen, I really didn’t think a ton about the inherent power imbalance in their situation, although of course I was aware of it. Fen himself is very aware of it, which helps, I think — that at least he acknowledges like, I’m her boss, she lives in my house, she doesn’t have anywhere else to go, that makes this all very complicated. Now, as an adult, I sometimes struggle with books with that kind of dynamic — nanny, or boss/assistant, or what have you, because I think a lot about those dynamics. Too much sometimes. I’ve BEEN an assistant, I read Ask a Manager religiously, workplace boundaries are very important to me!

Because yeah, things are turning for Fen here. He doesn’t just see Clare as his employee anymore. She tries to make coffee just for him, and he’s like, “Join me.” She demurs, which he’s fine with, but then when she tries to bring his tray of coffee in that’s a bridge too far and he’s all prickly, like, “I can wait on myself.” And of course Clare is oblivious to what’s going on here and is like there’s no pleasing some people which is a totally fair thing to think! He’s her boss and she’s not picking up on (or is willfully shutting out) the cues that he wants to be anything more than that.

Let’s take a brief pause before things start to HEAT UP to admire the offer of free books and a lovely necklace that used to come in the middle of these books, that you could rip out and send away via Business Reply Mail!

Something about “please send me a lovely necklace” really kills me. Like they make you repeat back the adjective when you ask for it.

One night, Fen goes out with a woman Miles calls his girlfriend. Miles also says that this woman “makes Cruella de Ville look like Mary Poppins,” which is hilarious to me. I have read enough romance novels from this era to know that this means Fen is getting Frustrated by the Woman He Can’t Seem to Stop Thinking About and so must Go Out with the Woman He Doesn’t Care About but Who Will Make Him Forget (or So He Thinks). This was a very common trope!

Clare doesn’t care, of course — what’s it to her! And yet she finds herself waiting up and then falling asleep looking at the clock. When she’s awoken by the sound of a car outside, she’s disoriented for a minute and thinks it might be burglars. She puts a raincoat (?) on over her pajamas to check it out, but of course ends up only running into Fen. A very drunk Fen, who immediately starts accusing her of obviously being about to leave for some assignation of her own.

Truly I do not understand this man’s fixation on her sex life. I mean, I do. He’s clearly jealous and feeling possessive. I’ve written before how I can be kind of into that in stories, actually, although I prefer it when the character just seethes and pines INWARDLY without making it anyone else’s problem by tossing out accusations and asking how many people the other character has slept with. (To your EMPLOYEE, Fen, what’s wrong with you! If she were your GIRLFRIEND I would say you’re out of line and since she’s not, I’d say you’re really out of line!)

This leads to a whole scene where he kisses her roughly, and she starts crying. And he gets very self-loathing, very “I only hurt people” (to which I would say . . . I mean, in this context, yes, that is exactly what you’re doing!!! You can choose to not do that!) But she does care about him, and feels tenderness toward him, and so she reaches back out to him. He kisses her palm — this is one moment I remember very clearly, it was so poignant to me when I first read it! — and then they start kissing in earnest. They’re on the couch, he’s unbuttoning her shirt, he has his mouth around her nipple, it’s starting to go DOWN but then she has this moment of really seeing the situation. She’s reminded that he’s her boss, that she’s nothing but his hired help, and she’s like, No. So they stop.

There’s a lot of emotion in this scene. And it’s kind of dark, honestly, and a little twisted. They can both see that they’re fucked up people in their own ways, and they’re each seeking comfort in each other. He hates himself for wanting her when he knows he shouldn’t, and for acting like such a brute. She hates herself for giving in and opening herself up to pain.

The next morning, he apologizes to her and says it won’t happen again. She’s very stoic about the whole thing, careful to look him in the eye just so he knows she’s no pushover but not saying much. He’s like, “You don’t give much away, do you?” and NOPE, she doesn’t! I love this about Clare. But she does appreciate that he apologized so sincerely, and now just wants to pretend the whole thing never happened.

There’s more conflict over Miles, which I really do think upon rereading this book were some of my favorite parts. I just love the slow trust that builds between Clare and Miles — I think it’s really sweet. And I like that he’s kind of obnoxious in the ways that a spoiled, lonely kid might be, and that Fen does want to be a good dad but you can see that he doesn’t quite know how to connect. Miles really, really doesn’t want to be sent away to boarding school, and Clare lets her neutral guard down enough to say, well, you should talk to your dad about that. Tell him how you feel.

So Miles does — being all cute and formal at dinner, saying, “Father?” in a way that immediately gets Fen’s attention. Fen listens, but says he’s just not sure there’s anything to be done about it now because school starts in only a couple weeks . . . Miles is upset and pushes away from the table, going, “See?” to Clare.

Well. Of course Fen has to know what’s up with THAT. “See what exactly?” he wants to know, and Clare tries to hide behind her “I just work here, this is above my pay grade” schtick but he’s like uh uh. Clearly you’ve been talking to my son about this, so tell me.

And Clare gets herself all whipped up! Just talking about how much Miles is obviously scared about being a misfit, how messed up he obviously is. “And he hasn’t a hope of fitting into some nice upper-class boarding-school. He knows it, even if you don’t!”

I love this scene! I love that stoic, scrupulously neutral Clare allows herself to get passionate coming to Miles’ defense. I love how clearly she obviously sees him, how much she obviously cares about him. And I love that, although some of this stuff is hard for Fen to hear, he takes it. “Don’t apologize,” he says when she tries to after her outburst. “I asked for the truth, you gave it. If I don’t like it, that’s my problem.”

These are the parts where Fen redeems himself a bit to me. He is very fair-minded, he does listen, and he obviously respects Clare and values her opinion. So it’s decided that Fen will try to get Miles into a day school, and Clare will take over watching him after school for some extra pay. It does show that Fen trusts her a lot more than he did a few months ago, but she still has to double-check that he’s cool with her watching his son knowing that she has a record. He can’t resist the opportunity to once again ask if she was innocent, but you get the feeling it’s more because he wants to know her than he wants to judge her. “Not really, no,” she says, and he can’t help but laugh, a little surprised by her honesty. He says, “Personally, I think most of us are capable of doing just about anything, given a specific set of circumstances.” Which could just be more trademark Fen Marchand cynicism, but I like to believe it’s a bit of an olive branch. It feels like maybe he’s finally saying, okay, maybe you did something in your past, and maybe it doesn’t matter.

Fen has an appointment, so Clare is the one to take Miles horseback riding. Pretty much no one believes Clare will know how to ride a horse, but she does! Very well, in fact! (Remember, she lived on that big estate where she helped in the stables.) Fen shows up and they all ride together, and it’s a lovely time where they obviously seem more like a family than like a father and son and employee. Fen helps her down from her horse and comments that she “caught the sun” and then tells her that if her muscles are sore she should take a nice long soak in the bath later! She’s left wondering if Fen could possibly be flirting with her and YES, Clare, he is absolutely flirting!

Fen’s appointment was with the day school, and he secured Miles a place there! Everyone is very happy until Fen also reveals that his “girlfriend,” Professor Millar, was the reason he was able to do it, and he invited her to dinner that night in thanks. Miles reacts to that as if his dad invited Cruella De Ville herself to dinner, and Clare’s not too happy either because it means having to whip up something more involved than she normally would. (Or at least, that’s why she says she’s unhappy — clearly she’s also hella jealous. But in a quiet, seething way, so I’m cool with it.)

During dinner, Professor Millar asks where Clare learned to cook and is like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have thought. Did you do it — um — inside?” And then, when Clare is silently fuming — the fucking audacity of Fen to have told her that! The betrayal! — Professor Millar is like, “In prison, I mean.” Like Clare is too much of a dumbass to understand what she meant by “inside!” This woman is the fucking worst!

After dinner, Professor Millar can’t help but grab a moment with Clare to be all patronizing and imply that she and Fen are definitely getting married but don’t worry, she wouldn’t sack Clare because she couldn’t be bothered with the cooking herself. She asks Clare if she understands and of course, Clare being Clare, she’s like, oh, I understand perfectly, and then is “rude” to Professor Millar by merely flatly stating back the exact thing that she said without all the dressing around it. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Clare? This is the best way to own someone.

Fen, of course, hears that last part and asks to speak to Clare afterward. He asks what that was all about, and Clare says, “Mrs. Millar merely informed me of her intentions and I confirmed my understanding.” Even Fen is a bit amused by that and is like, “I believe I caught your ‘confirmation.’” He asks her what problem she has with Professor Millar and she does that masterful insult thing where you’re like, eh, you two deserve each other, where you clearly mean BECAUSE YOU’RE BOTH PIECES OF SHIT. He clocks it and it’s so clear, the game he’s trying to play. He wants Clare to express strong feelings about Professor Millar not because he gives a fuck about the professor (she’s not even really his girlfriend — she just wants to be) but because he cares about Clare and he wants her to be jealous.

But my Clare is playing chess, not checkers, my dude! She’s not falling into that trap. She just asks in a businesslike voice when the wedding is going to be and if he needs her to cook for it, and that’s when he loses his mind and is like, “No, I damn well don’t wish you to cater for it!” She’s better at this shit than you are, Fen! Don’t play the game — you can’t hang!

Things get heated on the stairs — it’s the same story, where he throws her jailbird past in her face again (Fen, stop) and she gets all prickly and defensive about it again, and then he grabs hold of her wrist and she kicks out at him, but then she ends up losing her balance and pulling them both down on the stairs. That ends up defusing some of their anger and they just sit there, trying to figure out where to go from there.

“And your eyes, I’ve never seen eyes so green. He held her gaze with his but she refused to let him see inside her head. “The color of jade, and as hard as glass . . . You feel anger and you feel pride, but do you ever feel anything else, Clare Anderson?”

Clare shut her eyes, closing off her soul to him, and made to rise, to get away from his intrusive stare. He caught her arm once more. “What do you want of me?” she asked tensely.

He shook his head. “I don’t know . . . you walk round my house like a silent shadow, yet all the time I’m aware of you.”

Like!!! This book is so toxic in some ways but that shit was very romantic to me as a teenager. A silent shadow! That he’s aware of!

He does say he didn’t tell Professor Millar about her being in prison, but that he did tell one colleague when he was first interviewing her and it must’ve gotten around. He apologizes for not being more discreet, and again it’s sincere and softens her up somewhat. Enough that they start kissing again, and he asks her to come upstairs. “I need you,” he says, “We need each other.” But that is the WRONG thing to say if you’re looking to get with Clare, my man, because she doesn’t need anybody! She breaks it off again and they both go back to their respective rooms sexually frustrated, angry at each other, angry at themselves, etc. etc.

Okay, I’m up to Chapter Eight now and trying to speed things up a bit. Basically, there’s some more jealousy stuff — she notices that he didn’t come home one night, and assumes he was with Professor Millar. He finds her in his room, checking it out, and doesn’t believe her when she says she was just about to clean it. When she makes a crack about how she needn’t bother, since he obviously didn’t sleep there, he seems amused rather than upset, which she doesn’t understand. (Uh, it’s because he’s DELIGHTED that you are finally showing that it bothers you, him being with Professor Millar!) She also makes a crack about how Professor Millar is probably very boring in bed, and he’s like “Not as interesting as you, I bet,” which is SUCH a gross thing for him to say to her as his employee and yet once again . . . as a teenager I was like !!!!!!!!!!! Okay wow he’s just saying stuff!

He’d also hired a separate driving instructor for Clare, after some of their back-and-forth tension, and is obviously eaten alive with the idea that she would want to date that loser. He tries to forbid it, but then realizes he’s being a horse’s ass and so says fine, do what you want, but then also can’t help but follow her into the kitchen to be like . . . wait, will you date him, though? Clare, of course, has already shut the driving instructor down in no uncertain terms, but still she gives nothing away and is like, “Maybe.” My girl.

Miles, meanwhile, is thriving at school! He even made a friend! He talks excitedly to Clare all about it and Fen gets that bemused “Wow, my kid told you more than he would tell me on the way home” reaction every parent of a pre-teen or teenager has to know at some point in their lives. Clare, of course, bristles at the idea of anyone needing her or caring about her, and so she tries to push it off, saying Miles will grow out of it, she’s just there it’s not like she’s special, etc.

Fen’s starting to get Clare, though. He sees that maybe what bothers her is that they’re important to her, too, that it doesn’t just go one way. And that scares her. He tries to push her on the issue, but she won’t admit it. That breaks him, and he says, “God, and Lou thinks I’m scared of commitment . . . would it be so awful to admit a fondness of Miles, at least? I’ve seen the two of you together, smiling, talking, laughing. You’re so natural with each other, he could be your son.”

Ooooooof. Of course, Clare had a son . . . not that Fen would’ve known that. His words really pierce her, and she almost starts to cry. She panics. She doesn’t know what to say.

But Fen figures it out. He realizes that she had a son, and he asks where he is, and she has to tell him that he died when he was four years old. Of course, Fen is a father, so he can immediately empathize with how much pain that must’ve caused her.

Clare runs off to her room, where she lets it all out, thinking about her son and the deal that was supposed to help her get the money for his treatment that ended up just being a sad failure all around. She stole a horse from the estate’s stable — she knew that’s what she was doing — and then she sold it and helped retrieve a package for Fuckboy. She only understood after he went into a room with the package looking haggard and came out looking much better that it must be drugs, and then later that night he’d ended up overdosing, and dying himself.

I can’t emphasize enough what HEAVY SHIT this felt like in a Harlequin Presents novel! I didn’t expect it! But it also made me think about the book a lot. I don’t know, I just thought about Clare and everything she had been through. I really felt for her.

Fen comes up later to check on her. It briefly cuts to his perspective, which is interesting because you don’t get much of it throughout the rest of the book:

He watched her for a while as she slept and wondered that she who seemed so strong could look so vulnerable in sleep.

He stared at the picture that had slipped from her grip, and barely recognized the girl in it. She looked a decade younger and happier. She was beautiful with her dark red hair and flashing green eyes.

He looked back down at the bed. It was the same face, but too thin now, and scarred by grief. He wanted to wipe away her tears but couldn’t without waking her. He wanted to take away the pain but couldn’t, because he didn’t know how.

I know, I know. Shades of Edward watching Bella a bit. But I guess I do understand why that kind of stuff feels romantic, when you’re young. It’s nice to think that someone cares about you that much to want to protect you. I just wish that “protection” didn’t sometimes take on toxic controlling undertones, but let’s not spoil this particular moment here between Fen and Clare, which really is just one of concern and caring.

She wakes up, he tells her he was worried about her, he kisses her forehead, she turns toward him, and suddenly they’re kissing and it’s turning into more. “They made love in a hurry, as if they both knew they had only moments before sanity returned.” And then: “It wasn’t love, just sex. Neither pretended otherwise. They lay together afterwards, catching their breath, gathering their defenses.” All he says is, “I shouldn’t have.”

I SHOULDN’T HAVE. Ooooof.

The next morning, he asks if she’s all right and says they have to talk. But meanwhile she’s busy packing her bags. He reminds her that she’s supposed to give a month’s notice and what is Miles going to do after school? and so she reluctantly agrees to stay until the half-term break.

They enter into this dance during her notice period, where he’s scrupulously polite and appears to be interviewing for her replacement just like he said he would, but she can’t figure out what game he’s playing. At one point, they’re interviewing a candidate together (described as “a pleasant if rather untidy woman in her late thirties” and I was like, wait, could that be me????? And then I was like no, no, I’m untidy and also probably don’t come across as that pleasant) and the candidate asks why Clare is leaving.

“Miss Anderson is obviously too shy to tell you,” Fen says when Clare can’t seem to figure out what to say, “but the truth is, I have fallen in love with her. This has caused her some embarrassment and, unable to return my feelings, she has decided to quit my employ.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a WILD way to declare your feelings for someone! He has NEVER said this to Clare’s face, remember! But the way I gasped when I got to this part!!!! He’s in love with her!!!!! He just said it!!!!! To a job candidate!!!!!!

Of course, Clare doesn’t believe him and is just mad that he said it. Her notice period is almost up when she ends up getting contacted by someone from her past — Sarah, Fuckboy’s sister, who wants to meet up to talk. Clare agrees but of course doesn’t want to tell Fen what she’s doing, so she just lets him think she’s going on a date with the driving instructor. (DRIVING FEN MAD more like it, amirite?)

Basically, Sarah is sorry for the way everything went down, and knows that Clare wasn’t really guilty of aiding in her brother’s death, and that she had her reasons for stealing the horse. She tries to give Clare a check for thirty thousand pounds — the amount Clare originally needed for her son’s treatment — but of course Clare is like, fuck you and your money. (Would I be as strong as Clare? I mean, that’s bullshit — you let me go to prison! You didn’t say shit at my trial because you didn’t want to get in trouble with your parents! Where the fuck was your money when I could’ve actually used it? But also, it’s thirty thousand pounds and it’s the LEAST you can fucking do, I might’ve cashed the check.)

Okay. So this scene was rough upon reread to be honest. But basically, Clare comes home. Fen’s angry because he thinks she was out on a date, which of course she barely even remembers saying that’s where she was. They have another forceful scene on the stairs (I would NOT want to be caught on the stairs with this man) where he gets quite handsy with her! I did not remember this and I did not care for it! He is just way too rough with her!!! As a teen I think I was swept up in all the EMOTIONS of it but as an adult I can see so much more clearly how fucked up it is, how potentially dangerous it is to see this kind of stuff wrapped up with romance and love.

So once again, this leads to them having sex. This time, before they do it, she admits to herself that she loves him, but she still doesn’t believe he could possibly love her so she would never say that aloud. It’s mostly a very sweet, very emotional love scene. He wants to make it good for her. They kiss like it’s brand new. He takes his time looking at her. That kind of thing.

There’s this one moment at the beginning of it, though. Where she says “The way he looked at her was a mixture of desire and disdain.” And that kind of hurts my heart a little bit because like . . . is that really how he feels? If that’s how he feels, then that’s fucked up. Is that just how SHE thinks he feels? The way it’s phrased seems absolute, but of course we’re in her perspective. After that, you don’t get the sense that he’s looking at her or touching with her with anything other than love, but damn does that line kinda stick with me.

There was a line in With Love, from Cold World, actually, that I went back and forth on several times. (It wasn’t inspired by this book in any way! Just reading this line and thinking about it made me think about Cold World.) It’s in the scene where Lauren and Asa are hooking up for the first time in her office, and she feels like he’s looking at her like she’s defective and she feels self-conscious. And I really hope it’s clear that we’re in her perspective in that scene and so that is just Lauren’s PROJECTION of how she thinks he might feel, not at all what Asa was actually thinking in that moment, because in that moment he’s really just too blurry-sex-brain to think much of anything at all beyond how lucky he is to be touching her in this way, it would be the farthest thing from his mind to think she’s anything but perfect.

Regardless. I hope Fen’s not looking at the love of his life with disdain in this moment so let’s just go with that it’s her projection of how he feels and not how he actually feels.

Although after they have sex and Clare goes to leave, getting all sarcastic again, Fen ONCE AGAIN calls her a bitch and even says he could kill her sometimes!!! Jesus Christ, Fen, I feel like I am BENDING OVER BACKWARDS to defend you and you are just not proving yourself worthy of it. Don’t say shit like that!!!!

Anyway. This leads to a final confrontation, where Clare finally tells Fen the truth of what she went to prison for. She tries to leave it at the bare bones facts and accept the blame, but he’s like, I don’t believe you, and she ends up telling him more about her son, the horse, how she didn’t know about the drugs, etc. Even their final declarations of love end up being kind of a fight:

“You won’t marry me,” she said, only now with less certainty. “You can’t. Even if you believe me —”

“I do,” he cut in.

“And even if you love me —”

“I do,” he cut in again.

“And even if I loved you —”

“Do you?” he cut in a third time.

Clare looked cross rather than loving. “That’s beside the point.”

The book’s final paragraphs kind of acknowledge that their relationship might be unconventional, but it works for them and they’re happy together. I guess they just go on to be one of those “fight as hard as they love” couples??? That shit is not my vibe because I don’t want to fight!!!

I’m putting the song at the end because this one isn’t really about the song, as you can already tell, although I do love it. It’s a fun one to shimmy your shoulders to. And I really do love this book, and found something so comforting about revisiting it again, even though I was a little appalled by some of what I found because it was a lot rougher than I remembered. I just loved Clare as a character — how stoic she is, how much she feels and how much she protects those feelings at all costs. I love her relationship with Miles, and the way a lot of her relationship with Fen develops through the way they come together over helping this kid adjust and feel like part of a family. I do think that it’s good that romance novels aren’t really written this way anymore (at least, not the ones I read?), where behavior that is abusive can get written off as being a high intensity moment of passion that’s a one-off, or excusable later, or part of sexual tension. I think that was a lot more common back in the ‘90s and before, and now we tend to write characters who communicate in healthier ways, who practice affirmative consent, etc.

Currently reading . . . In addition to this nostalgic reread, I’m currently enjoying Celestine Martin’s Kiss and Spell, which is a charming, fun romance about a recently jilted woman and the fae prince (really!!) that she meets. I also just finished reading How Are You, Really by Ella Dawson, which is an excellent example of a novel that is extremely thoughtful about boundaries — both the ways abusive exes and toxic bosses can push against them, and also the ways that supportive friends and caring partners can help reinforce them while also gently helping you to open up more. It was a beautiful book and I loved it. It’s one I know I’ll think about for a long time.

watching . . . I feel really bad that last week, I watched a gymnastics routine over and over and then put a video to it in my newsletter and only THEN did the video disappear, which makes me feel like I must’ve done that! I don’t know how, but it’s an impossible coincidence! Somehow the person found out someone was watching it and was like, oh shit, I didn’t mean to leave that on the internet and took it down? Or the copyright holder was like, hey, wait a minute . . . ? I don’t know. But I am the reason you can’t watch Dominique Moceanu’s 1997 Reese’s Cup gymnastics floor routine and I’m sorry.

So I will tell you that the family is still watching The Expanse, but I shan’t be posting a video!

listening to . . . I have had Paramore’s cover of “Burning Down the House” on repeat ever since it came out. It’s so good. AND HOW ABOUT THOSE TWO GRAMMY WINS including the first female-fronted band to ever win Best Rock Album?!?! I’ve been glowing about it all week like I had something to do with it.

preordering . . . There is an EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES coming out 2/13!!! I can’t even keep up. But here are five I am highly anticipating:

• How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly

• The Catch by Amy Lea

• Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne

• The Friendship Study by Ruby Barrett

• Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair by Laura Piper Lee