London, 1860. It's the night of the Masked Ball, one of the most elegant events among London society and a chance for Emily Adams to pretend she's someone else. Someone who isn't penniless and hailing from a scandalized family. Someone who hasn't been told by doctors she has less than a year to live. Behind the mask, Emily can put painful recollections aside and focus on her mission: to find a man to give her a first kiss. Malcolm MacRoyce is on a different kind of hunt, one he knows all too well. A ball among English aristocracy is the last place the immortal Highlander would expect to find himself, but tonight he's in pursuit of one of his kind who's been terrorizing London-leaving a trail of bloody murders in his wake. Since Malcolm was cursed centuries ago, he has lived by a strict code and has sworn vengeance on those responsible for his transformation, a vengeance that has gone unsatisfied ---until he meets what he has waited centuries for: the reincarnation of the woman he'd once loved...the same woman who damned him. After a chance meeting in a shadowy garden, Emily can't deny the attraction between her and the mysterious Scotsman. But can she trust this stranger who looks at her as if he knows her very soul? Or shake the sense that Fate is playing a game with them both.