In this sexy historical romance, the second of the Dark Heart Series which started with 'If You Dare', Kresley takes readers on a journey through the Scottish Highlands with hunky leading men.
When Hugh MacCarrick was a young man he did something very reckless with Jane Weyland, the daughter of his superior. While she merely used him as a summer flirtation to practice her wiles on, he fell in love. This was ill-advised because Hugh's family harboured dangerous secrets and was shadowed by a deadly curse, and also because he was being recruited as an assassin under her father's watch. Even if these obstacles were absent, Hugh knew a woman like Jane -- heart-breakingly beautiful, rich, and from a prominent English family -- would never marry a Scot with no title or prospects. So, to avoid the impossible temptation to kiss her and the misery of seeing her marry another, he left the country. Now ten years later, Hugh is wealthy, an assassin in Her Majesty's Service, and still secretly in love with Jane. When he receives a missive that her life is in danger and rushes to protect her, will he be able to resist the overwhelming need to make her his?
Jane Weyland is furious when her father summons Hugh to London to protect her. Yes, details about Weyland's secret government dealings were made public and she is endangered, but couldn't he find a single other man to take her from London into hiding? Worse, he expects them to marry to avoid scandal. Through manoeuvrings and a bit of blackmail, Weyland coerces her to agree, though she's been devastated all those years ago when her towering, grave Scot had left her. She'd been so young then, naively assuming they would marry, and her feelings haven't dimmed with time, which only makes her more furious. Clearly her father has lost his mind, even with his assurances of a speedy annulment when things die down, but why would Hugh agree to this insanity after she all but begged him to say no? How dare he do this to her? Her fury stoked, she decides to torment him just as she had all those years ago with soft touches, whispers, and seductive play -- that he can do nothing about it without risking marriage to her, a consequence he'd made clear he didn't want. But she soon discovers that Hugh is not the gentle young man he used to be and that toying with the fever-pitched desires of a hardened warrior might get her burned...
