He's a European prince with over a thousand-year-old lineage and he hates her as much as he craves her

Alyssa

When I'm introduced to Prince Carl-Theodor Frederick Maximillian Christoph Albert Maria Johann Anselm 17th Prince of Saxony-Bremer and Lautenburg-Bornheim an-der-Elbe, I'm as breathless as his endless name. Something savage twists inside me. Gorgeous and charming as he might be, I don't trust men like him, men who believe they're a superior species, who wield near-unlimited power with the license of ancient nobility.

Instinct warns me to keep away or I might get burnt to a cinder.

It's easier and safer to pretend he doesn't touch me. So I use my imagination to dream up insults, abusing and defaming him and his family. Meanwhile, I try to avoid him.

Until I can't, because he turns out to be irresistible. Soon, he has me on my knees before him, which, alas, is exactly where I want to be. But what does he want? Prince Hot and Cold, arctic ice and lava, he brings me to the edge of insanity.

Prince Carl-Theodor of Saxony-Bremer

At first sight, Alyssa blinds me with her beauty.

Then she wrecks my being like a derailed express train.

Never has anyone so deeply insulted me or my family. Rage transfixes me, my pride so deeply injured that it seems my heart bleeds into my innards.

Since my father died, I am Head, Protector, and Defender of the House of Saxony-Bremer. I won't endure hearing my family slandered, then do nothing about it. I vow to avenge my bloodline, to pay her back in kind for her vicious words. I'll make her hurt, make her taste her own medicine.

But hurting her f*cking turns around to hurt me. I can bend her to my will, but once she's tamed, once she hurts like hell, her pain reaches out to me. Have I committed myself to a vow I can't keep?