Deceit and Devotion — Faye Hall

"I will pay you to sleep with my wife."

Jarrah Miyan, a young half-caste aboriginal man, is supposed to seduce a white woman into an affair so her greed-driven husband can gain full control of her inheritance, including the rare collection of black opals she keeps under lock and key. When he walks into the study to meet the poor chit he's to take advantage of, he expects to find an aging woman who smells of stale perfume and gin. Who he finds though is the most beautiful woman he's ever laid eyes on -- the same woman whose pale thighs had been wrapped around him just a few hours earlier as she'd begged him to give her pleasure.

After their night of passion together, Emily Holtz doubted she would ever see Jarrah again. To have him standing before her now, asking for employment at her cattle station, was not a situation she had prepared herself for. She agrees to hire him on one condition. He has to spy on her husband and get her the incriminating evidence she needs to apply for a divorce. She's spent years in a miserable arranged marriage, and she's desperate to escape. But her husband is a dangerous man, and he will stop at nothing, including murder, to get what he wants.

As they begin to develop feelings for each other, Jarrah worries about what will happen when Emily discovers that he's been working for both her and her husband. Not that they could ever really be together, as society would never accept that.

Content Warning: contains sex, strong language, and some violence