Best friend Bridgett Owens's gigantic diamond winked at the eldest Deveraux son, Chase, like a coy madam at an old-time bordello. The fun-loving playboy of Charleston, South Carolina, wasn't supposed to go gaga over the grown-up daughter of the family housekeeper. Except welling up in the bachelor's brain were protective, intimate feelings that he just couldn't - didn't want to - discount.

But can a man who's definitely not the marrying kind turn into a (gasp) committed groom-to-be...especially when nothing but bad luck has burnished his romantic record?