As the port of Alexandria came into view, Portia Merriem trembled with excitement. Here she was, the stepdaughter of a marquess, about to live an Egyptian adventure. But instead of enjoying thrilling excavations, Pip found herself on a houseboat on the Nile, praying for a miracle that would save her pregnant traveling companion. When help finally arrived, she thought she must be dreaming. He was John Henry Lovell, the friend and protector of her childhood ... a world away from this powerful man who stared at her with the eyes of a stranger. He’d loved her all his life. And now, like a ghost from the past, she stood before him as heartbreakingly beautiful as ever. She was the reason John Henry had fled Norfolk. Yet how could he abandon her now — alone in a foreign land and determined to raise another woman’s child as her own?