Hard-hearted magnate Dario Parisi will reclaim his stolen birthright—even if it means forcing the granddaughter of his family's sworn enemy to marry him.

Alissa Scott is certainly not the biddable wife Dario wanted—yet he's consumed by red-hot desire for his unwilling bride. So when she tries to change the rules, he demands she honor all her vows. Finally he has exactly the kind of wife he wanted: a virgin bride!

Annie spent her formative years on the east coast of Australia and grew up in a book-loving family. One of her earliest memories is of lying tucked up in bed, drowsy after an afternoon's adventure in the rainforest gully that was her backyard, and listening to her father read The Wind in the Willows. She got hooked on romance early. In her teens she spent long afternoons playing tennis with her best friend. Between endless games on baking gravel, they'd stagger to her friend's house to recover, and in that house was an unending store of books, all with that distinctive rose on the cover. That's how Annie discovered romance and she's been addicted ever since. All those strong silent types, flashing-eyed Italians, haughty Spanish aristocrats and the rest.