Excellent point. The character of the male lead presented to the reader was bipolar, to say the least. At one point he's giving a bonus to someone who hasn't come into work because of a sick wife (as CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, he couldn't know about every employee's family circumstances), at the next point, he's acting like a sociopath and serial sexual harasser who won't take no for an answer. His flashback story seems to be almost an after thought to garner sympathy. At the end of their tryst, during which he acts gloatingly possessive, she tells him that she loves him. He basically calls her a liar, so she leaves. (I can understand why he thinks she's lying: even he must know that it would be impossible for even a semi-rational creature to love someone that acted the way he did.) Then he comes to her country and does the big boo hoo about how she left him and he's just too sad. I know that this is Harlequin, but at least make the characters a little bit believable.
Everything you say is point on and true, and yet, SOMEHOW, he is still not the WORST ML I have seen in Harlequin stories, by a VERY large margin. How bad is that? Seriously. Good, healthy, mentally stable, kind and decent male leads are SO FRIGGIN' RARE in Harlequins, that it is honestly disturbing. What the worst part is, is that most Harlequins are written by women. WTF?!? WHY would any woman want to romanticize these kinds of toxic behaviors?
I really wonder about that, also. Things have come to a strange pass when not being a rapist is grounds for receiving the Victoria Cross.
LMAO IM SORRY BUT THIS WAS SO BAD (my opinion) but it’s one of those super short stories so I get it