For
Starr and David the journey from lovestruck teenagers in love to
twenty-somethings in love has been a long and arduous voyage of self-discovery
and waiting an appropriate amount of time, a decade, before getting married and
making hasty babies. After three chapters of Under the Millionaire's Influence
there seemed little stopping the estranged lovers from rekindling their mutual
passion and ending the novel in a hurried and foreseeable fashion. Author,
characters and reader clearly just wanted to get all this over with, and so on
a pier over-looking the ocean after a series of tedious conversations they
professed their undying love for each other and hugged, happy in the knowledge
their selfish reunion had brought suffering and shame on every single other
character in their lives. A happy ending if ever there was one, for Starr and
David, if no one else.
To
reiterate, David Hamilton-Reis returns to Charleston to tend to his sickly
mother, but to his puzzlement finds the old girl surprisingly sprightly and
chipper. Less surprising, however, is his instant attraction to the homespun
existence of Starr Cimino, the love of his life who has a house and business
next door to the Hamilton-Reis estate. As chapter four begins David resolves to
make some changes in his former back yard, before returning to his day job of
fighting international crime and being tremendous. Firstly, he reasons, he must
not become romantically involved with Starr, knowing their relationship could
never find the long-term happiness both wish it could. Secondly, he has to
remove those pesky Cimino's from the beach, the gypsy villains are trouble, and
he knows it, not only are they leaving Starr unhappy, but they are also driving
down house prices by being unfashionably poor. Thirdly, David needs to come to
terms with the long-lasting effects of his emotionally-sterile upbringing, his
distant father and his snobbish mother, especially if he is going to become
romantically-involved with Starr.
Starr
also has to deal with some of her own deep-rooted issues. Firstly, she must not
immediately jump back into bed with David, because his work and his
emotionally-sterile upbringing will only cause her pain eventually. Secondly,
she has to wave goodbye to her birth parents once and for all, to save her
business and to save herself, because the Beachcombers business is all she has.
Thirdly, once she has those scuzzy gypsies gone she could allow herself to be
vulnerable and honest with someone, put her past behind her and truly begin to
introduce happiness into her life, meaning she could finally become
romantically-involved with David and jump back into bed with him. Watching each
other do anything, or even not watching each other, but simply thinking about
them while absent-mindedly operating machinery, proves too much for both hero
and heroine and before you can say, 'This is predictable,' they have wrapped
their arms around each other and kissed longingly, fully aware of the burning
desire they can feel when their aching bodies press against each other, his
muscles firm and rigid, her breasts soft and perfectly-shaped.
However,
Starr is able to break the embrace and return home, leaving David with a plan
and an uncomfortable walk back to his mother's house. If Starr refuses to be
with him because she does not want to travel the world and wait in hotels while
he completes his top secret missions, he must kidnap her and coerce his new
best friend, Seth Jansen, to fly them to a suitably exotic romantic
getaway where they can platonically discover how wonderful it would be to marry
and travel to exotic locations together. Once Starr awakens at a deserted
airfield to find her belongings packed into a bag she is confused and more than
a little turned on. What about her business, her step-sisters and her estranged
family committing heavens knows what kind of crimes against her business and
step-sisters, and who is this stranger with his own private plane? David
seductively instructs her to stop asking questions and accept that she cannot
escape and must abandon her responsibilities for the sake of an indulgent
vacation. With Starr still haunted by a childhood plagued with abandonment
crises and enforced suffering this is more than enough to leave her a little
turned on.
Seth
flies them to New Mexico where David and Starr sample the delights of Taos and
R.C. Gorman's Navajo Gallery, before passion cannot evade them any longer and
they enjoy a series of sex scenes to bulk out the second act of the novel.
While taking momentary breaks from being naked with one another, David uses the
opportunity to pry into Starr's troubled early life, and has her explain all
those childhood traumas the reader is already aware of. Starr reveals all, both
figuratively and literally, by continuing her parade of sultry nakedness. In
turn, David exhibits his own sensitive side, acknowledging respect for Aunt
Libby and admitting vulnerability when it comes to Starr. Could this arrogant,
chauvinistic secret agent actually be empathetic and willing to suffer eventual
heartbreak for sex? If so, should Starr marry him immediately and proceed to
birth his babies? Though it is fulfilling, satisfying and thankless to read
about, David's wooing must end, as Starr stamps a pretty, little foot and
demands he return her to the pressing narrative matters of the story. If David
believes he can convince her to follow him around to world with a brief
holiday, surely she can prove to him the value of staying at home and mending
things around the carriage house by making him go home and fix his relationship
with his mother.
They
drop in on David's home, where Alice Hamilton-Reis is helpfully absent, to
unearth photographs of their prom night for another of Starr's memory albums.
With the crafty use of casual swearing Starr teases full disclosure from David,
as he tells of his oppressive upbringing, his withdrawn father and the one time
he showed the young boy the back of his hand to force him into taking over the
family business against David's wishes. This shocking revelation of abuse
strikes a chord with Starr and inevitably leads to sex, as anything does with this pair. Shortly
afterwards Starr comes to the conclusion that she loves David and always has,
even though she already knew this. Meanwhile, David decides in the aftermath of
the sex that he should not walk away from all this sex, so the couple are bound
in eternal union. Only three nagging plot-points remain to be resolved and
those are the three plot-points that Mann opened her novel with. What will
happen to the Cimino family and their vagabond criminality? What will happen
with David and his mother, thanks to all the psychological damage Starr has
dredged up with her womanly questioning? Finally, can the lovers overcome the
differences in their personalities and long-term objectives that have always
managed to wreck their chances of a relationship? Has Catherine Mann left
herself too much to do in the final chapter, having put off dealing with
anything of significance in the opening ten?
The
reader nervously delves into the novel's climax and finds that of course
everything can be tied up in a neat bow and stored out of sight to never
complicate the lives of the protagonists again. Alice can be kicked out of her
home and sent to a retirement community where she will linger for a couple of months
and then die. The Cimino Clan cannot be charged with any misdemeanours, but
they certainly can be warned to stay out of Charleston, South Carolina and
continue their crime spree anywhere else in the United States, just not around
their daughter. Lastly, David and Starr can kiss on a pier and what used to
separate them can be entirely disregarded by the author. With Alice sent to her
doom the mansion is empty for youthful reinvigoration. Starr agrees to follow
David on his elusive foreign missions so long as they are close to her new
university course, while David agrees to occasionally come home and never
discuss where he has been because of national security, possibly, we don't
know, as Mann feels it unnecessary to explain the details of David's job, even
though his work is fundamental to the central conflict of her novel.
Happiness
came and love conquered all, from homicidal travellers, to infirmity, to child
abuse, to childhood neuroses and the inability to accept love because of
repressive and irresponsible parenting. Starr Cimino and David Hamilton-Reis
were free to pursue marriage and the many children they will burden with their
inherited emotional deficiencies. Otherwise, Catherine Mann continued with her
hackneyed prose, littered with damns and darns, and ended with an incredulous
conversation that implied our hero and heroine were aware of the title of the
novel, as Mills & Boon foolishly toyed with meta-fiction. Who, after all,
is the millionaire in this relationship and who is under whose influence? Do
these questions best represent the most important elements of Under the
Millionaire's Influence? The answer, naturally, is no, but when the author
seems intent on abandoning the pressing aspects of their story, because there
was nothing but being reasonable stopping the characters from getting together,
sometimes the only way to end a novel is to change the subject and hope the
reader lacks intelligence. For example, here is a video of Hugh Jackman asking a chair to dance.
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