Tore Renzetti and Violet marry because she needs money and he wants her grandfather’s voting rights in his business. They’re strangers, planning to live separate lives.

He has work and she owns a bakery and has adopted a young child.

To their surprise, avoiding each other, keeping it platonic isn’t as easy as either of them assumed.

UPDATE (June 2025): Tore and Violet’s story will be called the “Unveiling the Wrong Bride“.

Excerpts From the Book

‘I won’t stand for being treated like that!’

‘I can hardly cancel them at the last minute!’ Tore bit out with barely leashed rancour. ‘That would distress my grandparents.’

‘You have been had,’ Violet murmured with wry sympathy. ‘Your grandparents are being more appropriate than you assumed. This arrangement will hardly qualify as a honeymoon and it’s a neat way of getting you to conform to expectations that you have, clearly, previously ignored. Family time…’

Tore swore vehemently under his breath in Italian and swung round to her, one hand momentarily brushing her shoulder to ensure that she turned to face him. ‘Did you think I hadn’t already worked that one out?’ he raked furiously down at her, green eyes flashing sparks in that lean, darkly handsome face.

‘Don’t put angry hands on me or raise your voice,’ Violet told him in sharp, icy warning. ‘I won’t stand for being treated like that!’

Violet felt a little like she had been slapped down.

‘Where do we go from here?’ she heard herself ask uncertainly as Tore surveyed her with his characteristic cool, assessing gaze, and she lowered her head and began to feed Belle to occupy herself.

His lean, hard-boned features tightened. ‘No place different from where we were last night,’ Tore imparted with succinct bite.

Violet felt a little like she had been slapped down because on her terms, everything was different. But Tore was evidently telling her that he didn’t want it any different outside the bedroom door. Obviously, he wasn’t feeling the sense of closer connection that she was experiencing. That physical togetherness had meant nothing to him.

‘I don’t need permission.’

‘I want to dance.’

‘No,’ Tore told her simply.

Violet dealt him a cheeky grin and her sheer appeal in that moment left him breathless. The sparkling eyes, the pink pout of her lips, the way she wrinkled her little nose in defiance. ‘I don’t need permission,’ she said, standing up.