Businessman Gideon Banks is cold, brilliant, rich...and bored. Who knew that a man who excelled at debauchery could become so bored? It's not until he learns that he is heir to the Taunton Earldom that things start to get interesting. The late earl's irksome, superior, and entirely too attractive widow is particularly fascinating to him. And the fact that she's now entirely dependent on him? That opens up an astonishing array of thrilling-and erotic-possibilities...Alys Taunton might be sheltered and lonely, but she's not stupid. When Gideon proposes a marriage of convenience, she never expects the immoral man to remain faithful. But the sensual delights he promises are impossible to resist, and she soon starts to wonder what would be more painful: refusing him and keeping her distance, or offering him her complete surrender, heart, body and soul.