Picture a dark-skinned, big-nosed, tender-hearted 8 year-old boy, not yet grown into his over-large hands and feet, his limbs at that awkward, gawky pre-teen stage. Despised by his father, abandoned by his volatile Italian mother, cruelly tormented by his schoolmates – how can he even begin to know the meaning of love? This is the now-adult Marquess of Dain, our tormented, brooding, arrogant, loveless, wounded hero. Feared and shunned by the gentry, he stalks and plays in the dark underbelly of society. Until Jessica Trent comes along. Dain is dragging her nitwit brother down with him, and Jessica wants him away from Dain. The fun begins when they meet in a shop and ‘tussle’ over a watch with an X-rated secret. It is pure joy to watch the intelligent, strong-minded Jess confound and infuriate Dain in her quest to free her brother from his influence. Never before has a lady so plagued Dain’s mind and his libido! He blocks and parries her every move, until – after he’s publicly besmirched her virtue in a pantingly hot, erotic encounter and walked away – she shoots him! Then the real fun begins, when Dain decides to marry her. Yet he’s terrified of loving anyone. The little boy in him screams when he gets too close to Jess, just in case he loves then loses her too, and suffers further adult agonies of grief on top of the horrors of his childhood. It would destroy him to love a woman. Jess has to be patient, loving, and hotly seductive to get past his blockheaded resistance to her trying to melt the ice around his heart. And wow – when Dain breaks under Jess’s seduction, he breaks spectacularly, trembling and vulnerable in her arms. The bigger they are, the harder they fall! Wait – there’s more! The little matter of his defiant, tear-away, bastard son Dominic. When Jess discovers Dominic’s existence, Dain’s shaky world is completely uprooted and overset. This is a joyful, tearful, tender beauty and the beast classic you’ll read over and over. And every time will be beautiful, all over again.