From internationally bestselling author Lucy Monroe comes a seductive desert romance about a ruthless billionaire prince, the woman he was supposed to deceive, and a marriage bargain that becomes dangerously real.

He was supposed to make me fall in love with him. No one warned him he might fall even harder.

JULIANA
My family has spent my entire life trying to fix me. I've spent years building a quieter world where I can finally be myself, working with rescue horses, helping children heal, and searching the desert for imperfect crystals that still sparkle.

Then Gabriel enters my life.

He's a gorgeous, commanding desert prince who looks at my curves with unmistakable hunger and treats my hidden dreams as if they matter. With him, I discover a passion I never knew my body could feel and a future far bigger than I ever dared imagine.

I cross an ocean for him. Give him my trust, my body, and my heart.

Then I discover the truth.

My father made my marriage the price of a powerful medical alliance. Gabriel studied my life, planned my seduction, and set out to make me love him.

I refuse to be the final clause in a contract, no matter how desperately I still want the man who betrayed me.

GABRIEL
I came to Santa Fe determined to secure the medical treatments my family and my country need. When marriage to Juliana becomes the price, I approach her courtship as I do every negotiation.

I learn the terrain. Formulate a strategy. And prepare to win.

What I do not plan for is Juliana herself.

Her generous heart. Her quiet courage. The passion she gives only to me. Somewhere between claiming her innocence and bringing her home to my desert kingdom, my intended bride becomes the one person I cannot live without.

Now she knows how our courtship began, and she believes that means it is over.

She is wrong.

The contract no longer matters. Juliana does. And I will use every weapon at my command to prove that she was never merely the woman I agreed to marry.

She is the jewel of my heart and I will move my entire world to keep her.

Bound by a bargain and consumed by a passion neither expected, Juliana and Gabriel must discover whether a love born in deception can survive the truth.

Welcome to the Brides of the Al Qadir Dynasty.