Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate

Gabrielle Alexander had been sixteen when she'd been sent away by her cold mother to Australia and all because of a kiss! Author Kelly Hunter blew me away with that opening statement and from that moment on I was transfixed and riveted to Exposed: Misbehaving With The Magnate, the first book in Kelly's Hot Bed of Scandal series. Gabrielle Alexander had spent most of her life trying to please her mother and now by her childhood friend she's been summoned back to France because her mother was ill. Back at the Chateau her first encounter is with Luc Duvalier the very man who was forbidden to her. And now facing each other after seven years, it's overwhelming for her plus again, she's rejected by her ailing mother. Then the most interesting thing happens, Luc tells her mother if she doesn't shape up, he'll ship her out and Luc and Gabrielle have a conversation about their past, one that I was quite sure was not over for either of them. It was still there, the sensual tension, wanting her, desire soaring through Luc Duvalier and she was simply driving him crazy from want and need. He also felt his protective side because he always felt because of him she lost her home in France because they were caught acting out their passion for each other seven years earlier. Luke wants to find out her plans and he does when they discuss Gabrielle's and her brother's Rafe's Australian wine business. Rafe is a long time friend of Luc's and has become a very successful vintner. Gaby wants to look into taking their wines to a different level by finding a new distributor and possibly purchasing an old run down vineyard and house for their business. This would allow her to return home to France, the place she loves so much. Luc and Gaby can't seem to stop their banter nor their mutual feeling of sexual attraction so Luc takes it a step further when he tells her he wants more and she accepts. The Duvalier's and the Alexander's have so much history as Luc and his sister Simone and Gaby and her brother Rafe were childhood friends. They also had more than childhood history, Luc and Gaby the sexual attraction and Rafe and Simone actually fell in-love and Rafe asked her to leave with him and move to Australia. However, she refused because she was young and he really had not come into his own, so it caused heart ache for them both. Throughout Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate their history is exposed, along with secrets and the abuse that Gaby suffered under the hands of her mother. It made for an incredible story and it also set the pace for Rafe and Simone's story which is part of Ms. Hunters Hot Bed of Scandal series. What was so amazing about this particular love story was reading about Gabrielle's learning to understand herself and not falling back on her mother's harsh and hurtful comments about Luc when she told her daughter Luc would never want to marry her because she wasn't good enough. Even with all of the abuse from her mother I felt it made her stronger pl