In USA Today bestselling author Julie Anne Long's latest installment in the Palace of Rogues series, a witty historical romance, an estranged couple decide to fake their way through the London season to repair their good name? but neither are prepared for the genuine sparks that begin flying between them.

A blue-blooded beauty bartered to a Beast?

He would pay any price to possess her. But even though Alexandra Bellamy sacrifices herself to save her family's fortunes, a shocking betrayal sunders her marriage of convenience to a taciturn brute of a war hero, Colonel Magnus Brightwall, before it even begins. Five years of icy separation later, a scandal-with Alexandra at the middle-reunites them, and Magnus issues an edict: they will confront the ton, rescue their reputations, then Magnus will banish her to another continent-forever.

But alone in a suite at the Grand Palace on the Thames, a new battle begins-between pride and the unexpected volcanic passion stirring between them. The danger is real: Magnus rediscovers why Alexandra is the only woman who could ever break him. And even as she lays bare the beautiful heart beating beneath the battered hide of the near-stranger she married, Alexandra knows she may have already lost him-even as she finally falls fatally, irrevocably in love.