The London night draws on.  Three men play cards. Choked with shock, Alden, Viscount Gracechurch, faces absolute ruin.  All is lost:  his wealth, his ancestral home, his future . . . until he is offered one final wager, one last chance to win everything back:  He must seduce, within the week, a mysterious lady he's never met. If he fails, he will not only be ruined, he will also owe these unpleasant men some further, unspecified penalty.

It's the most perilous wager he's ever accepted.  Yet how can London's most infamous lover fail, even when his enemies have chosen the lady?

The Game . . .

Safely hidden in the English countryside, Juliet knows that desire leads only to disaster. Then a charming stranger beguiles his way into her carefully guarded sanctuary to ask for a single game of chess.  She must send him away or risk the destruction of her world, for temptation is Juliet's bitter nemesis and he's the loveliest man she has ever seen. . . .

So why does she agree to play?

The Seduction . . .

An expert seduction is Alden's most brilliant, most heartless, most irresistible skill.  He expects to win.  She expects betrayal.  Neither of them expects to become embroiled in a web of treachery, where unknown enemies have plotted their destruction.

Yet win or lose the infamous wager, falling in love isn't even an issue.