Pretty young heroine/actress Merry Charles (who is 20) is in a stage play. Director hero Gideon Steele (who's 34) is in the audience and wants to see her after the show. Excited Merry thinks Gideon may want to use her in his next production, but he has a more personal reason for seeking her out. He tells her he's her stepbrother and that he wants to reunite her with her biological mother. (Merry didn't know she was adopted.) Merry eventually agrees and Gideon persuades her to try to get to know her mother by taking a Mediterranean cruise on a yacht with him posing as her boyfriend...

Merry was a likable heroine who did stand up to the hero at times, but Gideon was very arrogant, cranky, and angry through most of the book, so it wasn't a very romantic read. I didn't like how he first went about telling Merry she was adopted and he kept pestering her, trying to force her into meeting her biological mother without giving much thought to Merry's feelings. (Even though everything did work out in the end and Merry was glad she did meet her mother.) I did like the setting on the yacht but I found the story disappointing as a romance, even though I liked the mother/daughter storyline. I usually enjoy Carole Mortimer's books, she's one of my favorite Harlequin Presents authors, but I didn't care for this one. ( )