Her Perfect Stranger, by Jill Shalvis

The other one is Her Perfect Stranger, by Jill Shalvis. It sounds interesting, both the stuff about the space program and the story about a one-night-stand which ends up not being one.

Plot summary:

One wretched night while a storm rages in Huntsville, Alabama, a woman seeks refuge in a hotel pub. The man watches her temper with amusement. She's drenched, filled with fire, passion and rage. When the power goes out, he offers her his room for the night. It seems like the perfect opportunity for two perfect strangers to share their passion. Their connection is electric, but when morning comes, the woman is gone.

Mike shipped in from his assignment in Russia to accept a pilot position in a space shuttle mission. He is stunned to learn that his commander is Corrine Atkinson, the perfect stranger of the night before. And he is hurt that her cold demeanor in no way acknowledges the connection they made. His bitter disappointment leaves him determined to break through Corrine's formidable defenses.

Posted later...

I've finished both books. The first one was Her Perfect Stranger (of course I finished it first! it was much shorter). Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, about a C+.

As it often happens, because I choose books very carefully, I liked the concept but not the execution. My biggest problem with it was that Corrine acted so out-of-character in most of her dealings with Mike. From all we knew about her, she was a very rational and professional woman and her career seemed to support that. But she acted terribly stupid and unprofessional when forced to work with Mike.

Maybe the author thought this was the only way to create conflict, but I don't think it was. The reaction I would've expected from Corrine, when confronted with having to work with her one-night-stand, would have been to talk to him very calmly, something along the lines of what a small world it is, and what a bad idea it would be to endanger their work by pursuing a relationship right then. Then they would have tried to work together, learned to like each other, and would have started having a difficult time keeping their hands off each other. But no, she had to act like a twit and allow her emotions to control her.

And Mike didn't behave very well either. All that touching on the job, trying to make her uncomfortable, and how he kept grabbing her all the time. He was harassing her, IMO. She should have stopped it (she was his boss, for crying out loud!), yes, but he shouldn't have done it in the first place.

Finally, I didn't believe these 2 had fallen in love. They didn't know each other, because the image they had of the other was completely false, if we believe the character painted by their actions was the true one.

I did enjoy the setting, and the fact that the heroine had a real career (BTW, what's up with her getting pregnant 3 months after the end of the book... right after the mission? Hated that!), plus, the love scenes were very hot and Corrine and Mike did have chemistry. A real shame about all the bad stuff.