The Vow He Breaks
Nerissa Calloway has spent years waiting for the man who ruined her family to die. When word finally comes that Rafe Ashworth has perished in disgrace abroad, she travels to his crumbling estate to claim the inheritance long denied her family. But the gates of Ashworth Manor open onto a lie. Standing in the rain-slicked doorway is Rafe himself, alive, unrepentant, and refusing to surrender a single acre of what he considers his birthright. What was meant to be a straightforward retrieval becomes a dangerous standoff between two people bound by old promises and older betrayals. As autumn deepens around the manor's ivy-strangled walls, Nerissa uncovers letters that suggest Rafe's supposed death was no accident, and that the men circling the estate, including the calculating Lord Percival Whitcombe and the watchful Tobias Crane, may have reasons of their own to keep its secrets buried. Torn between exposing a scandal that could restore her family's honor and protecting a man she was raised to despise, Nerissa must choose: walk away with the truth, or stay and risk her heart on a vow Rafe may yet break again.