I was waiting for this question to come up on the AAR board. It will be interesting to see how or if people respond to it.
Really Sherry starts the book trying to end it with his mistress, but does have a fuck for the road. So him screwing the anon widow on the way to the country wasn’t a big deal for me. Which I went into in more detail on the AAR review board.
I think I would have had trouble with it if the kiss had happened first and then he screwed the random widow than the way it happened in the book.
She has the same kind of thing going on in Beyond a Wicked Kiss. The hero does “the thing” with someone after he meets the heroine. He feels guilty after but isn’t quite sure why. He doesn’t have a “relationship” with the herorine at this point in the story.
Didn’t bother me in either case. I think this just makes her heroes more “real”.