Kenneth Jagger keeps the guardianship documents on his library table and expects no argument about them. Eloise Burke argues anyway, every time. Her sharp challenge to his decisions stirs the old wound of betrayal that drives him to demand absolute obedience from everyone around him.
Eloise's stubbornness masks the abandonment she dreads, yet it draws her closer to the duke whose unyielding nature both frightens and fascinates her. Every challenge she makes buys her the intimate discipline that will answer her rebellion and expose the vulnerability neither admits.
The estate and their shared ward hang in the balance, and the isolation he has clung to for so long has never been closer to breaking. He tells her to be in the library at dusk.
