Time Fuse

Ok, so I read this little... er... er...
Well...
My sisters and I have a tradition: I'll make crepes and one of them reads a Harlequin book, making it as ridiculous as possible, with heaving bosoms and all that. It's hilarious. Except that this time we didn't have time to make crepes, and I ended up reading this book for myself.
It's horrible. I know the 70s and 80s Harlequins are notoriously awful, but this one could possibly be the worst of them all.

We have this really beautiful young woman who has always wanted to be a barrister, but couldn't afford the education, so she was just a juridic clerk or something. She got a job with this old judge and was basically adopted by his family. The family considered her a very close family friend, almost like their child. They recommend to her to seek a job with their family friend, a crown barrister, who just happens to be Selena's father. He cheated on his wife with his secretary, who got herself pregnant with him to get him to leave his wife and marry her instead, but that didn't happen. She died when Selena was 11 and she was adopted or put in a surrogate family or something. Anyway, Selena goes to a job interview and is employed. She meets her employer's... hmm... what to call him... next in line? Anyway, he's the employer's sister's son, and - of course - the hero of the story. His name is Piers. He is very cold, hostile, suspicious, and downright nasty to Selena. Because she looks like her mother, and Piers met the woman when her uncle was cheating on his wife with her. He took his mistress to see his sister's son at his school! WTF?
Piers assumes Selena is there just to seduce his uncle, “others have tried”. (Apparently just Selena's mother.)
Selena keeps telling him that she isn't interested in her employer that way, that she wants to work in the area but couldn't afford the education (this is repeated at least three times in the book), but for some reason, he doesn't believe her. Anyway, he sexually harasses and even assaults her, and she - of course - falls in love with him because of this. She also behaves guiltily all the time, because she does have a secret, she knows the guy is her father. Why she doesn't tell Piers that of course, she has secrets, everyone does, but they are not going to influence her work, she is not after his uncle, so Piers has no right to know anything about that. Nope. She just blushes and avoids and behaves like a deer in the headlights, and he pushes and digs... but doesn't find out the truth. I seriously don't know why, because the press was following her until her mother died, and she didn't hide her name either, she just used her mother's boyfriend's last name. I don't think it would have been hard for Piers to find out who Selena's mother was and that this is his uncle's bastard daughter, but - alas - he didn't find out.
We have a scene where he tears a 16yo girl into pieces because he was defending the man the girl claimed had raped her. He dug up and interviewed every boy who claimed to have had sex with her and painted her practically a whore. The heroine protests his cruel behavior, and he just says “she admitted 10 minutes ago that she's pregnant with her classmate, and she was afraid of her parents, so she made up the rape story”. And the heroine is ashamed for not having trusted Piers' amazing ability to figure out people's secrets.
Anyway, the first moment they are alone, he gropes her breasts and kisses her, and when she slaps him he laughs and says “In my experience women slapping men is more a sign of sexual frustration than being genuinely offended”.
He speaks about her sex life.
When the girl is out with the judge's family celebrating his 60th birthday or something, Piers is at the same restaurant with a woman. He comes to the table and asks Selena to dance with him. She politely refuses and says that in her experience it's best to keep the work life and social life separate. He gets furious, and the judge and his wife berate Selena for having been so rude and humiliating Piers in public.
This goes on and on.
Then her employer gets a heart attack. She was on her way to bring him some folders, was in casual outfits, like jeans and a t-shirt (and of course, they looked very sexy on her) and her uncle wasn't there, there was Piers, and Piers is asking what she was doing there, and why she is being so sexy and all, and more sex talk, and she tries to defend herself, and then Piers say “it tells all about how you see my uncle, you haven't even asked how he is”, or something like that. Like she had any time with your f-ing p-ssiness.
She gets invited to the uncle's country home because he needs to take it easy, and Piers is there hanging on her to see she doesn't have sex with his uncle. More sexual harassment.
She meets her half sisters and her father's wife (she met her father's sister, Piers' mother, earlier), and they are all very nice.
Then they end up in bed and it's all very hot, but Piers realizes she's a virgin and then he yells at her because of that. And then he wants to marry her.
But she cannot marry her, because he'll hate her when he finds out who her mother is, so she tells him in the most horrible way she can come up with, and his father's wife happens to hear who she is, and tells her her father has always been worried about her and wondering what is happening to her, but he promised Selena's mother to stay away from her life, but he'll be so happy to finally meet her, and they are all so happy and welcoming, and there's tears and joy and happiness and celebration, except for Piers, who had to travel somewhere. And the whole family tells her she should definitely marry her cousin, Piers, who is so obviously in love with her.
So she goes to his apartment and waits for him there, and tells him she loves him, and she was just lying about trying to get her father's money, and he tells her he loves her, and how could she be so stupid to believe anyone would think anything bad of her because of her mother. And blah blah blah.

Oh, and he's 8 years older than she is, she was about 24 or something, so he was 32.

I hate these stories where sexual harassment and assault are nothing to care about, on the contrary, people tell the heroine she shouldn't make noise about it. Where the hero is cold and cruel and mean and nasty and horrible, and the heroine still “falls in love” with him. Where there's nothing but the sexual attraction between the two, and we are supposed to believe it's LUUUUUUVVV!!!!