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PROLOGUE

CASIMIR, CROWN PRINCE OF BYZENMAACH, ith a woman on his mind and an ache in his loins He rolled onto his back, and let out a groan when the heavy cotton sheet rubbed against hiain, and then again Not this again Not her again—it was the third time this week

He wasn’t impressed

It took longer than usual to shove those ardaside and roll out of bed Naked, he padded across age-old silk carpets towards the door that led to the parapet that led to the bathhouse—a doence that would have found favour with the gladiators of Rome

Cool air hit his skin the e double doors, and if he hadn’t been fully awake before, he was now Su in Byzenmaach but here in the snow-capped northern e of winter on them and alould He suffered it because he liked the cool lick of ice on his skin and because it made that moment when he entered the hot pool that much sweeter

Nothing could ease the tension in his body and clear hise of the hot pool and then another five immersed in the still and silent water at the other end of it Access to the bathhouse was one of the main reasons he’d made Byzenmaach’s remote winter fortress his permanent home

Hedonist He’d never deny the label Pleasure-seeking was an integral part of his nature

It wasn’t all he was

The woman on his mind—Ana—had been a mistake, a youthful indiscretion, a hedonistic folly, and every so often she haunted hi in Geneva He’d been on his way hoate talks and bored The bar where they’d first met had been called the Barrel and Fawn

Who remembered details like that seven years after the encounter?

The ay to the bathhouse was open to the air on one side, courtesy of a waist-high stone wall and colonnade arches The view that greeted hied to impress, no matter howway round through the palace, but until then he’d enjoy the caress of coolardour

It didn’t