I never craved fatherhood.
My dukedom's legacy hung like a noose, duty's cold chain binding me to isolation. Tradition armored me, quill-sharp and unyielding, until the day she signed the papers. Her fingers traced the ink in throbbing silence, eyes defiant, promising a partnership I swore I'd never need. This woman, fierce and unbowed, was meant to be transaction, not temptation.

Candlelight flickers across sprawling library shelves, where formality frays. What began as detached nights, gowns shed for obligation, twists into fevered surrender. She arches beneath me, silk rumpled and discarded, as I drive deep without restraint, spilling seed in desperate rhythm. Her quiet rebellion turns playful gasp, pulling confessions from my stoic lips. I armored myself in title, but she strips me quill by quill, baring the man starved for her touch.

Every encounter defies the pact. Her resilience cracks my control, yielding to obsession that risks everything. Whispers in the haze of spent passion speak of forever, not heirs alone. Yet decorum looms, a shadow over our souls. One wrong glance in these halls, one unguarded moan echoing off marble, and ruin follows.

My legacy. My restraint. Her heart in my hands. I've forged this bargain to preserve it all, but her gaze confesses sins I never knew I hungered for. What if the very act meant to secure my line unmakes me entirely?

A full-length breeding Regency royalty marriage of convenience erotic romance featuring a haunted duke and his fiercely independent bride.