The Midnight Masquerade

He closed the doors on the worst night of his life. She was hired to open them again. Ten years ago, Scarlett Drysdale disappeared from the ballroom of Drysdale Manor during the town's legendary Midnight Masquerade. Her silver fox mask was found beside the garden pond. She was never seen again. Julian Drysdale has spent the decade since turning the manor into a fortress of grief. He doesn't host parties. He doesn't trust strangers. And he certainly doesn't want an ambitious event planner arriving with a battered leather planner and orders to bring his family's infamous masquerade back to life. Ivy Hartley has never met a difficult problem she couldn't solve. With her business on the line, she has twenty-nine days to restore a ruined ballroom, organize three hundred masked guests, and persuade the manor's brooding owner to cooperate. What she doesn't expect is Julian himself. Beneath the cold exterior is a man still carrying the wounds of that vanished night—and a heart that begins to thaw every time Ivy walks through the door. But as Halloween approaches, Ivy discovers that Drysdale Manor has secrets of its own. Hidden letters. A locked west wing. A sister who may not be as lost as everyone believed. And when the clock strikes midnight, the masks will come off. A gothic small-town romance filled with simmering chemistry, a mysterious manor, buried family secrets, and a hard-won happily-ever-after.