I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Noelle could hardly breathe. Her heart hammered, and she stared at the pouch as if it were a snake. Thorne thought she would sell Gil to him.

Noelle has just become a widow with a new baby, as she's laying out all her worldly goods to see what she can sell, Carlisle Thorne arrives at her door. Carlisle was the childhood friend of her husband, but like her husband's aristocratic parents, he didn't approve of her husband marrying a commoner. Thorne is hurt and grieving over the loss of his friend and sees Noelle as a gold-digger, he thinks she won't want to be weighed down with the caring of a child, so he offers her money so that he can take Gil, the baby, back to England to be raised by his grandparents. Noelle is horrified that he thinks to “buy” Gilbert and then becomes terrified Thorne will take Gil and never let her see him again. She decides to go on the run to keep Gil with her.

“I've found her, sir.”

After Noelle decides to go on the run, the story then jumps five years and we learn that Noelle has been on the run all this time with Thorne's man trying to catch up to her. The men that Noelle thinks Thorne has sent after her all over Europe, have tried to snatch Gil away and been rough with her. When Noelle goes back to London because of an opportunity for more stability in Gil's life, even though it puts her in the same city with Thorne, she finally gets caught and learns that Gil's grandfather has died and Gil is now the Earl. As Noelle finally settles down and stops running, she realizes that Gil needs to learn how to run his estate and that Thorne and Gil's grandmother don't want to rip him from her and that she'll be able to live with him. The prologue with the anger, animosity, and feeling of danger, did immediately pull me into the story but as the story went on, Noelle started to be annoyingly distrustful of Thorne and the Misunderstanding between the two will probably want you to tie them down to chairs to force them to sit and talk.

“But...if it was not you who tried to abduct Gil, that means...”
He nodded. “That someone else is after you.”

Around 30% the story switches gears a bit and the characters and reader learn that it wasn't Thorne who was trying to snatch Gil away from Noelle but someone else and it's all tied into a tontine. A group of aristocrats, including Gil's grandfather, put money into a trust that would eventually go to the last alive male descendant of the men. This plot thread was all a little, just go along with it, especially when it was vaguely, 'they did put a time limit!'. It kept the danger feeling going throughout the book and introduced, brought in a character named Sloane, a cousin who has a shady past and obvious unsettled feelings with another character named Annabeth, but other than giving me Sloane, the whole tontine had many sections that made my eyes want to glaze over.

Yes, she was flirting with this dour man. Even more strangely, he was flirting back. It was mad; it was exciting.

I'm pretty far in the review and I haven't mentioned the romance yet, you're going to have to have patience, besides the distrusting animosity between Noelle and Thorne, these two don't really get going in the romance department until around the 60% mark. Then they just kind of start secretly sleeping together as they journey around England investigating the descendants of the tontine to see who would want Gil dead to inherit it. I can't say I ever felt the romance between them, either because they didn't have chemistry or because the story was muddled with all the distrust and tontine business. I wish three or four times of Noelle not trusting Thorne and scenes with the tontine descendants would have been cut; this story felt too long. Even though this couple takes until the second half to even get the romance engines revving, there was still a little bit of third act angst, which, of course, was Noelle not trusting Thorne's intentions when he asks her to marry him, even when it was fairly obvious why he was asking.

The last 85% ramps up and brings to head the action and danger and bouncing from reveal to not so fast to reveal. It kind of felt exhausting after a longer story that had a fair amount of moments that had the aforementioned eye glazing. Then the ending gave the romance aspect a very abrupt ending with quick “I love yous” and a marriage proposal. There was too much continuous distrust from Noelle, the romance took a bit too long to get going and then didn't provide the emotions I wanted, the danger to Gil was mostly what this story was about, and by the time I got to the ending it felt exhausting. I am, however, very curious and wanting more about the black sheep cousin Sloane and the quietly suffering Annabeth, I just hope there is no tontine in their story and it's more about the romance. ( )

This author never disappoints. Her writing style just resonates with me. Do you know what I mean? Some authors write excellently and you enjoy their books, but others just seem to sing out to you – this author’s books always sing out to me for some reason. The pacing is excellent and your emotions, fears, etc. just ebb and flow right along with those of the characters. You can absolutely feel the panic as it overtakes Noelle when she thinks Carlisle will take her son, Gil, away from her – by fair means or foul. Yes, our poor Carlisle has a lot to answer for in this enemies to lovers book – and believe me, it really is enemies to lovers because Noelle thoroughly despises Carlisle Thorn.

Noelle is the daughter of a Cambridge professor, so her education is unusual for the times. Being a progressive thinker, her father educated her far beyond what most women were – she spoke several languages and knew art, Latin, mathematics – well, all of it. Noelle is also arrestingly beautiful and much sought after by the students at Cambridge. She ignores them until Adam comes along and won’t take no for an answer. He’s handsome, romantic – and a gifted artist – and they love each other. They marry and have a child a couple of years later – only Adam dies – and she and the child are destitute. They’ve been living in an artist community on the continent – and Adam has been cut off from his family. Now, what is Noelle and baby Gilbert (Gil) going to do? And that is where the book begins. A tall, forbidding, grim, angry, and overbearing, dictatorial man shows up at her door and wants baby Gil – the man wants to PURCHASE Gil. Panic sets in and Noelle flees with Gil.

Carlisle Thorn was taken in by Adam’s family when he was a young boy. To Carlisle, that is his family and Adam was like a little brother. He’s tried to convince Adam’s father to reconcile with Adam, but he won’t – and now Adam is dead so they never will reconcile. The least Carlisle can do is bring Adam’s son home to England so he can be raised in the comfort he deserves. He just has to get the baby away from that scheming female who beguiled Adam and tricked him into marriage. There is no telling what someone with her loose morals will do and how she’d raise Adam’s child.

So, the misconceptions are off and running from the first page of the book. Noelle and Gil are constantly on the move. They hide their identities, they change how they look, they change their names – yet, Carlisle Thorn is continually searching for them – even after five years. He’s relentless and he’s almost caught them several times – well he did catch them several times and tried to kidnap Gil, but they always managed to escape.

When Noelle and Carlisle finally confront each other a second time, she really blisters his ears. Yet, he is unrepentant and doesn’t understand why she is so upset and fearful of him. As the story continues, each begins to understand the other may not be who they’ve believed all these years.

The secondary characters are wonderful and I loved them all. None of them are superfluous fluff added in just to fill page time. Each had a vital role in the story as it unfolded and each was truly likable. You’ll find mad dashes through unsavory parts of London, carriage chases across England, and hurried, dangerous flights across rooftops, but mostly you’ll find an exciting and well-told tale.

I can definitely recommend this book and cannot wait for other books in the series.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )