**A hard-nosed lawyer and a stage actress. Can they marry for love?** With a broken engagement behind him, James Wilkens spends New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas…where he meets Summer Lawton. She’s just suffered a painful betrayal, and James promises her that in a year, she’ll be over it. To prove his point, he makes a date to meet her in Vegas same time, next year. Except it turns out to be more than a date—it’s a wedding!

The year is 1667, and King Charles II reigns in England. An actress named Catherine finds that her brother is set to be executed for high treason, and her only hope of saving him is to accept a shocking role. She is to play the wife of man named Tom Trenchard and carry out a mission of espionage with him. She'll have to set sail with this brutish stranger who reminds her of a pirate while they pretend to be an adoring couple. But she begins to let her guard down when she sees how reliable he is. Perhaps by the time it's all over, her love won't be an act...

Bess was a girl when she first saw her husband on their wedding day. Andrew, Earl of Exford, left after the ceremony, and as Bess blossomed into a lovely woman, she reveled in the freedom afforded by her absent spouse. Yet she knew the day would come when she would come face-to-face with her long-estranged husband.... On the day of his return, Drew found himself speechless at his wife's heart-stopping beauty and charm. Could it be that this once awkward girl was the bride he had deserted so long ago? Furthermore, could she ever forgive his cruel neglect and return his love?