Cardinal Rules

Cardinal Rules is a romance novel by American author, Barbara Delinsky. When developer Corey Haraden first sees Corinne Fremont, he is intrigued. She works for his friend Alan Drooker as a market analyst and, while she's not his usual type, he wants to get to know her better. But Cori, as he immediately begins to call her, is cool and resistant to all his usual ploys.

This book was written in 1987 and, oh, how times have changed. These days, quite a bit of the way Corey behaves towards Corinne would have him slapped with a sexual harassment charge, if she had any backbone at all, but it seems to have dissolved when her first kisses her, if not when she set eyes on him. Calling the main characters Cori and Corey is just gimmicky. Corinne finally finds a sliver of backbone five pages from the end. A very early Delinsky novel that can be safely dropped from the "to read" list in favour of her later, better works.