The moment Collier Smith pulled to a stop on that rainy Tennessee mountain road and gently led the dazed, badly bruised woman into the warmth and safety of his car, his own life was shattered.

Brittany Banks was the wrong woman at the wrong time. But could there ever be a right time? He was a high-powered attorney on the fast track for a federal judgeship, engaged to a prominent socialite. Brittany Banks was a vulnerable beauty from the wrong side of town. And, in a cruel twist of fate, she was a reminder of the past he had struggled to forget. So why her, why now? Why this insatiable longing, this fierce need to protect her, to possess her -- a need that will drive him deeper into her world . . . perhaps at the cost of his own.