Blake Warner is a man who has sworn he will never marry. Therefore, he doesn't understand how he ended up standing in front of a preacher with the little hellion he met the night before. It was true that he took her to bed, but he thought she was already married. Blake may have been one of Chicago's most notorious rakes, but he would never intentionally break the cardinal rule of rogues-never take a young woman's innocence. He made sure she understood, he was offering no unspoken promises before he took her to bed. Meredith Vande Linde knew she would die a spinster in her small Minnesota town after a scandal tarnished her reputation. So what harm could there be in letting Blake think she was married, and allowing the handsome stranger to take her innocence. He would leave the next day, and no one would know. It never occurred to either of them they might get caught, until it happened.