Destiny found them, and rapture, wild and free, opened their hearts... As she fled to safety in the dark of the Mexican night, Verity Ames could not see the man who had saved her from attack... but he was determined to see her again. Two months later, Jonas Quarrel appeared at her California restaurant. He was a scholar—looking for work as a dishwasher! Yet the stranger on her doorstep was also a man with a special gift and a hidden mission. What was the subtle, mysterious power he exuded? How and why had he found her? All Verity knew was that his lips burned hers, awakening a passion far beyond her fantasies . . . and that soon, she and Jonas would have to face the secret fury that threatened their love.

Verity Ames, small town restaurateur, is involved in a passionate affair with Jonas Quarrel, Renaissance scholar turned dishwasher. Feeling that Jonas is underutilized, Verity signs him up to authenticate a sixteenth-century Italian villa on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. Why pass on the opportunity to investigate the past and include a romantic getaway. On the island, passions flare and events turn deadly. Someone does not want Verity and Jonas to discover the truth.