I don't care that I'm almost twice her age.

LUKE

One glance at Nora's image, captured so perfectly on the small canvas, causes a surreal pang of warmth in my chest. Her expressive light blue eyes enchant the darkest parts of me.

As the months pass, that pang of warmth smolders to an all-consuming need to possess the girl in the painting. To claim her. To make her beg. To own her.

Soon those expressive blue eyes will look to me for guidance. Soon Nora will belong to me. I have so much to teach her...

NORA

I've made a terrible mistake, and now I'm headed to an auction block in a brutal mountain town. I should've been a good girl and married the man of Papa's choosing, and now I'm going to pay for my sins.

Before I'm sold to the highest bidder, however, a handsome stranger rides out of nowhere and buys me from the slavers. I'm shocked to discover my new master is Luke Holsten--the very man to whom I was betrothed.

There's no escaping the arranged marriage now, and my new husband is quick to make me understand that he expects not only obedience, but my absolute surrender...