You should see what she’s wearing, Callie. It’s velvet. Canary yellow velvet. Turban to match. She looks like a furry banana.

Even as she’d come to know the real Ralston—the Ralston who was not cut from heroic cloth—Callie had failed to see the truth. And, instead of seeing her own heartbreak coming, she had fallen in love, not with her fantasy, but with this new, flawed Ralston.

Nick spoke again. "Her legitimacy will be questioned." Gabriel thought for several moments. "If our mother married her father, it means that the marchioness must have converted to Catholicism upon arriving in Italy. The Catholic Church would never have acknowledged her marriage in the Church of England." "Ah, so it is we who are illegitimate." Nick's words were punctuated with a wry smile. "To Italians, at least," Gabriel said. "Luckily, we are English." "Excellent. That works out well for us.

He raked his fingers through his hair. "She doesn't need me." Ralston smirked. "You are laboring under that mistaken impression that it is their job to need us. In my experience it is almost always the other way around.

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

I, for one, have no interest at all in having my heart stolen.

My whole life . . . two and two has made four.”... “But now . . . it’s all gone wrong.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make four anymore. It makes you.