At ease making life-and-death decisions between breaths, maître d'armes Nicholas Pasquale proposes marriage to a beautiful and desperate stranger, a woman who offers comfort to his irascible young charge and calmly tells him the boy needs a mother. It is a challenge he can't resist.

Nor can Juliette Armant. Though pledged to the church since infancy, she's been summoned to save her family in the only way possible...by marriage. Once she is wed, she will claim an ancestral marriage chest--and protect its secret contents from the dubious intent of her twin sister, who wants the treasure all to herself.

Juliette never dreamed such a practical arrangement would explode with heady desire when a rogue's kiss unleashes the sensual woman within. But someone is determined to stop the wedding, willing to go to desperate lengths to claim the chest, plunging Juliette into a fight to claim a legacy and a love worth any price.