The Kept Woman

Author: Susan Donovan

Samantha Monroe is tired of her life. The fiery red-head was once an artist, but she set that all aside to help support her husband and raise their kids. Unfortunately, 10 years down the road, her husband impregnates her, tells her he's discovered that he's gay and wants a divorce, then proceeds to disappear without a trace. She is now the divorced mother of three trying to make it on a hairdresser's salary. She's got two young teens who are always bickering and a precocious toddler who refuses to be potty trained, which causes no end of trouble in the childcare department. If she could just track down her deadbeat ex and collect the over $50,000 he owes her in back child support, things would be looking up, but after three years she's losing hope that she'll ever see a cent. When she muses tipsily to her friends on their monthly night out that being a kept woman might not be such a bad deal, she sparks an idea in Kara DeMarinis, long time client and friend of Samantha's who also happens to be a campaign manager who's congressional candidate, Jack Tolliver, has a serious image issue. Why not pay Samantha to pretend to be his fiance? She'll get to live in his fancy house for the duration, private school and college trust funds for her kids, and enough money to buy a house when the campaign is over. It's sounds insane to Samantha, but can she really afford to pass it up?

Jack Tolliver loves his playboy lifestyle and he's not the least bit ashamed of that. He can't get enough of beautiful women, especially red-heads, and has no intention of settling on just one. Due to an unfortunate moment that was caught on video, however, the whole world knows he's a shameless womanizer. As if that weren't bad enough, Christy Schoen, former lover and anchor for Capitol Update has got it in for him. What they say about a woman scorned definitely applies to Christy. She's made it her mission to expose every one of Jack's indiscretions and destroy his political career. Jack's cavalier attitude towards women does not sit well with female voters and family values groups. When the current senator for his state steps down unexpectedly, Jack realizes that this is likely his last chance to be elected. All he has to do is clean up his image, but when Karen DeMarinis suggests he "rent" a fiance, he's pretty skeptical. When he find out she has kids, he's totally against it, but in the end realizes that he has no choice if he's to have a hope in hell of getting elected. He's pretty sure this will all be a huge disaster, but he might be able to pull it off if he can play the doting family man and keep it in his pants until after the election. Then again, maybe he can talk a certain red-head into making their arrangement a little more ... personal.


The thing that most bugged me out of this whole crazy plot was Samantha's ex. He lives on the run because he doesn't have the money to pay child support. That's totally believable, but what gets me is that in all that time he hasn't tried to keep in any kind of contact with his kids. At first he gives the impression that he never even thinks of them. Then the phone calls, which alerts him that he may have been found, gets him to thinking about them and wanting to see them again. When he's told Sam's engaged, the man starts getting all crazy over the possibility of Jack adopting his kids. Most people don't adopt their step-kids, especially not when they're older, like Sam's were. Seems a bit irrational, but since he seems to be missing his kids and doesn't want them to become some other man's, it makes one think that he's realized that his kids are the most important thing in his life and that he may be sorry for what he's done. Then he turns around and blackmails Sam, takes money that was meant to be fore the kids, and tries to wreck things between Sam and Jack. The man's mind made more swings than a pendulum. The only time he seemed the least bit sympathetic was when he was playing Sam. Hated that character. HATED. The reason for Jack's womanizing was understandable, but really lame.