Description:
An earl's black-sheep second son is abandoned by his bride at the altar. Nearly a decade later, the two confront a reckoning they never expected at the Grand Palace on the Thames--an incendiary attraction neither one can resist.
He's scandal incarnate.
By the age of twenty-six, the Earl of Glencaster's wild black-sheep second son has tested every boundary and tasted every temptation. But when a duel nearly ends in disaster, Ronan's father orders him to marry before the end of the year. He knows just the perfect girl to settle his son: the orphaned ward of an icy viscount, who's conveniently right next door.
Losing his freedom is bad enough. Losing his heart is out of the question.
He's jaded; she's innocent. She's also proud and prickly and startlingly clever. But while the passion simmering beneath Sybil Beauclerk's surface intrigues him, it's her open-hearted vulnerability that brings Ronan to his knees. He would rather die than reveal the secrets of his battered heart to a girl who doesn't even seem to like him. Yet. First, he'll marry her. And then he'll spend the rest of his life proving he's worthy of her love.
She's no man's pawn.
He's impossibly arrogant, intimidatingly sophisticated... for all that, hopelessly compelling. But Sybil has no intention of being used to burnish a libertine's reputation or to further her uncle's social ambitions. When her uncle issues an ultimatum--marry Ronan Trevelyan or be turned out of his home forever--she bolts for freedom with another man the night before her wedding.
And yet that impossible young man proved impossible to forget.
Eight years later, while the ton waits breathlessly to see which girl the formidable Earl of Glencaster will at long last choose for a bride, Ronan unwittingly walks right into a reckoning. For there in the sitting room at the Grand Palace on the Thames is the only girl he ever loved, the one who abandoned him at the altar... and she's the paid companion of a stunning young beauty who fancies becoming the wife of an earl.
When a long-denied passion explodes between them, Sybil finally understands she broke her own heart when she shattered his...and that she'll need to do it all over again. Because the best way to love him might be to leave him forever.
Tropes:
- second-chance romance
- forced proximity
- class differences
- enemies to lovers
- loveable rake
Brief description:
USA Today bestselling author and Rita(R) Award winner Julie Anne Long's books have been translated into eighteen languages, nominated for numerous awards, and have appeared on dozens of "Best of" lists. NPR named her Pennyroyal Green series as one of the Top 100 romance series of all time. She currently lives in Northern California.