Colleen McCullough taught me that desire is the heart of romance.

He called me a pie!” she announced, defensively. There was a pause. “Wait. That’s not right.” “A tart?” “Yes! That’s it!

I had a perfect life in my reach once, and it was a crashing bore. Perfect is too clean, too easy. I don't want perfect any more than I want to be perfect. I want imperfect.

But there, in that remarkable room, surrounded by a laughing, rollicking, unseeing collection of London's brightest and wickedest, Pippa's knowledge of anatomy expanded. It seemed there was such a thing as a broken heart.

I've spent twenty-eight years doing what everyone around me expected me to do...being what everyone around me has expected me to be. And it's horrid to be someone else's vision of yourself.

Why now? Why not wait for a man to come along and…sweep you off your feet?” She gave a short laugh. “If the man you speak of had ever planned on coming, my lord, I’m afraid he has obviously lost his way. And, at twenty-eight, I find I have grown tired of waiting.

Oh, Callie-mine," Anne said, her voice taking on a tone she'd used when Callie was a little girl and crying over some injustice, "your white knight, he will come." One side of Callie's mouth kicked up in a wry smile. Anne had said those words countless times over the last two decades. "Forgive me, Anne, but I'm not so certain that he will." Oh, he will," Anne said firmly. "And when you least expect." I find I'm rather tired of waiting." Callie laughed half-heartedly. "Which is probably why I've turned my attentions to such a dark knight.