That Perfect Someone, by Johanna Lindsey

I read this book in one day, I was so gripped by the story and it was so easy to read. Unlike one of the reviewers at Smart Bitches, I actually enjoyed this book very much, and find it an improvement over "No Choice but Seduction".
As NCBS, this book is also set among the Malory family, but unlike it, the Malorys stay in the background (for the most part) and allow the new couple to enjoy the limelight. ANd, thankfully, neither hero nor heroine are Malorys or Andersons.
Richard Allen and Julia Miller have been betrothed since childhood and have hated each other since the moment they met for the first time, when they tried to kill each other for the first time. The greedy manipulations of Richard's father and an unbreakeable contract have prevented the end of the engagement, so Richard does the only thing he can do to escape his evil parent: he runs away to the Caribbean and spends the next 9 years hunting treasure with Gabrielle Brooks' father (Gabby is the heroine of Captive of my Desires and hooks up with Drew Anderson). Julia is only happy to be free of her horrid fiancee, and has decided to get him declared dead so she can move on with her life.
Things get complicated when Drew, Gabrielle, and Richard (who is part of Gabby's crew, and poses himself as frenchman Jean Paul) go back to England to the birthday party of Georgina Anderson Malory (heroine of Gentle Rogue, only sister to the hunky Anderson brothers and wife to the Incomparable James Malory). Richard fancies himself in love with Georgina, even if it means to risk death at the hands of her husband, James, and manages to crash the birthday party (which is a convenient masked ball) to gaze at her love at a safe distance.
In this party he meets a grown-up Julia, and without knowing each other's true identity, attraction sparks between them. The next time they see each other, unfortunately, they recognize each other, and the old hatred flares again.
Richard risks a meeting with his brother, the only member of his family who's half decent, but his evil father captures him. In order to bend him to his will, he's even capable of shipping his son to the Australian penal colonies.
Julia learns of Richard's fate, and even though she still hates him, she recruits James, Drew and Gabby's help and manages to rescue Richard. And somewhere along the road, the animosity between them changes to passion.
There's still that dreadful contract that binds them, but now they decide to work as a team to get rid of it... but would it be so terrible to end up married?
As I said before, I liked the book. It was fast paced, the pranks they played on each other when they were children were truly awful, and Richard's father was a sadistic, cruel, selfish, greedy villain, who has his just punishment at the end. James Malory is always gorgeous, but this time was spending more time with his wife than with his brother, and the many children of the family were neither seen nor heard. There were some far fetched things, like Julia managing her family's business since she was 17 on her own, and the miraculous recovery of her father (just to free her of her obligations). Also, Julia thought that many of Society's restrictions didn't apply to her because she wasn't an aristocrat and she was an engaged woman.
But in the whole, this was a nice book. I probably won't read it again (so many books, so little time), but it gave me many entertaining hours.