Amanda Ross is thrilled when she is appointed junior high school principal in Caution Point, N.C. But her promotion will only be a pipe dream if the board of education discovers that she's pregnant—and single. She never expected her baby's father to desert her, but explanations won't satisfy a small town's rumor mill. A husband is what she needs, and handsome music engineer Marcus Hickson looks like the answer to her problem.Embittered by his ex-wife's selfish and cruel behavior, Marcus told himself he'd never marry again. That is, until doctors inform him that his injured daughter needs immediate surgery, and Amanda—financially independent because of her inheritance—offers to pay the medical bills if he'll be her husband. Desperate, Marcus agrees, as long as their "arrangement" is strictly business. But days and nights under the same roof soon ignite mutual desire. Now Marcus and Amanda's marriage of convenience has become an affair of the heart and a deception that endangers everything they hold dear.