Rebecca Horsfall: Dancing on Thorns [2006] paperback

When Jonni Kendal comes to London to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, she's young, naive, full of courage and determined to excel. Just nineteen, she's desperate to escape the narrow, parochial life her parents have planned for her.

Jean-Baptiste St. Michel is haunted by his father: the man who abandoned him as a child, the man he can hardly remember, the man he cannot forget. Driven by his determination to forge a life for himself outside of the shadow his father's famous name casts, he's ambitious, talented and dangerously attractive - but suspicious of emotional attachments.

When Michel rescues Jonni one night and takes her home, there's an immediate attraction. Jonni finds herself embraced by an exciting new world she never suspected existed, and Michel, ever wary of commitment, finds himself growing used to her presence in his life. But before he can commit to any kind of future, he must release himself from his past ...