Crete Asgar is furious to discover that a previous girlfriend is getting married to someone else. On Christmas Eve, shortly before her marriage, he decides to tell her how he feels. That doesn’t go so well. THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS is a young lady called Timoney George, but truth to tell, she’s having second thoughts too.

This feels like a 1990s story, set in England. There’s a mention of a text and of Tatler magazine, but the PR work of Timoney doesn’t seem to have involved any social media or opportunistic photo sharing. She attended a swanky party in a club and met Crete, who is half-Greek and considerably wealthy. He was throwing his weight around, as usual, but he decided Timoney would fill his current girlfriend gap. He was her first boyfriend. Now, the pair chose to use the term mistress, but to me, a mistress is outside a marriage. Unfortunately, after a few months, the impressionable Timoney told Crete she loved him, and he got worried and threw her out of his London apartment.

Despite having a trust fund, which she can’t access yet, Timoney doesn’t seem to have met any other men of her age. She’s under the thumb of her severe uncle, and he was furious about her affair, so he decided to arrange a marriage with Julian Browning-Case, a slimy older man who likes decorative young women. That’s the position Timoney is in when Crete shows up on Christmas Eve. 

Given the title, it can be easily imagined that Crete kidnaps Timoney and brings her back to his apartment to buy time. Why does he now decide he loves her? Well, he just does. He misses her. Apparently. I tend to think it’s possessiveness, but there you go. This is an adult romance, and readers can make up their minds how much is about love and how much is lust. It’s interesting that neither person has much of a family situation, so maybe the season is prompting them to find a family and security.

Caitlin Crews tends to write about rich people who behave badly to other people. THE BRIDE HE STOLE FOR CHRISTMAS provides quite a few of them. This is an emotional romance, not very realistic, but entertaining.