At ease making life-and-death decisions between breaths, maitre 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 dreams such a practical arrangement would explode with heady desire when a rogue's kiss unleashed 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.