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At the age of five, Micah Johnson caught his stepmother Isobelle and the chauffeur getting in on while his father was away on business. Anthony Johnson arrives home early, and finds Isobelle beating Micah and he discovers this is not the first beating she’s given the child. Anthony throws Isobelle out of his house. Five years later we discover that Isobelle is living her new husband Ralph Carter and her son Jordan. When Isobelle dies, Ralph vows to seek vengeance against Anthony and his son for their supposed cruelty to Isobelle and he lures Jordan into his plan.
Now twenty-four years after the scene with his stepmother, Micah owns a construction company with his partner Ben Woodson. While Micah was working out of town, Ben hired Emma Bowers as their secretary. When Micah returns home his first order of business is to find out why Carter Construction seems to keep just under bidding them for new projects. Micah thinks Emma may be involved because she is the only one other than himself and Ben who has access to the bid information. Micah decides to seduce Emma to see if she’ll slip and say something in the bedroom.
While taking care of her dying mother, Emma Bower’s fiancé Steve Sloan had an affair with her best friend, so when Emma decided she needed a change, Steve’s father and her boss contacted Ben Woodson and she was hired on the spot. At twenty-three, Emma is a great secretary and she loves her job, but when she meets her other boss Micah Johnson, she’s just a little bit intimidated and attracted to him. Her friend and company foreman, Jordan Wilkins, starts to want something more from their relationship and now Micah is pursuing her from the other direction. What is a girl to do with all this attention?
PROMISES, PROMISES is a wonderfully crafted story with great characters and lots of depth. The main characters Micah and Emma bring out the best and worst in each other and the attraction they feel turns out to be so much more than either of them planned. Irene Estep created extraordinary secondary characters that have depths of their own and bring reality to the story. The romance and suspense complement each other and make for a really remarkable story. The reader may have an idea who is causing the problems for Micah and Ben, but you don’t find out until the end all the ties that bind them together.
PROMISES, PROMISES is an extremely enjoyable story that captured my attention from the beginning…I simply couldn’t put it down. I was very impressed by the talent Ms. Estep has for creating the right mix of characters, suspense and romance. I give the book a dazzling recommendation and I am putting Ms. Estep on my must read list.
Reviewed by Jennifer Ray
for The Road to Romance
March 6, 2005
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