She never meant to provoke him.
He never meant to stop pretending.
Everard Trentham, Earl of Merevale, is done being misjudged. Society insists on seeing him as indulgent and unserious, a reputation he once allowed for the sake of his intelligence work. A rake is rarely suspected of substance. But after being skewered as April’s Rake Review target, Ever is finished with the performance and wants out.
Then Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook storms into his carefully ordered life.
Brilliant, impulsive, and dangerously bored, Isabella has no patience for matchmaking mamas or relentless family pressure. Marriage is the last thing she wants, and she is more than willing to court a little scandal to keep it at bay. From their first meeting, she sees straight through Ever’s carefully maintained façade, and instead of retreating, she proposes a solution.
A false courtship. Mutual protection.
She gains freedom from the marriage mart. He gains a shield for his privacy and an excuse to withdraw from society without comment.
Ever knows he should refuse. Isabella is perceptive, too alive, and far too tempting to be safe. But she already sees him as he is, not as the role he has played, and the bargain is difficult to resist.
What begins as pretense sharpens into something neither of them intended. Attraction deepens. Lines blur. And the lie meant to keep them free threatens to bind them more tightly than truth ever could.
A slow-burn, fake relationship, opposites-attraction, age-gap romance featuring a grumpy hero desperate for peace and a sunshine-bright troublemaker determined to avoid the altar at all costs.
Dive into Season II of the wildly popular The Rake Review series.
