She arrives in the dead of night, a mob out for blood at her heels: Mariana Wylde...an opera diva brought low by a duel fought for her favors...Coldly brilliant, fiercely honorable, General James Duncan Blackmore, the Duke of Valkirk, is revered, feared, desired...but nobody truly knows him. Until a clash with a fiery, vulnerable beauty who stands for everything he scorns lays him bare. It's too clear the only cure for consuming desire is conquest, but their only chance at happiness could lead to their destruction.