Captain Alexandre Joao Marshall is furious. He's just been tricked by a silly female masquerading as a man, and has signed a binding contract to use his ship, the Scoundrel, in a reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Brazil. It was his idea, his dream, and his money he'd brought to the table, and now the dream was doomed to fail. He'd sunk everything into this venture and it would've succeeded if he wasn't now legally shackled to a woman who didn't know her place. He'd be bankrupt and a laughingstock in the male-dominated Brazilian shipping industry if he couldn't persuade Edwina Webb to release him from the contract or continue her misguided charade. He should've expected fate would deal him a rotten hand. After all, his mixed race, Portuguese and Japanese, had already stacked the deck against him. He'd tried his best to defy the odds but after suffering unexpected racial prejudice from those he thought loved him, a bout of malaria that'd nearly killed him and a duel with a cousin determined to scuttle his business, Alex throws in his cards and washes his hands of his female partner and his dreams. It's only when the ashes of his career settle that he realizes he'd been pursuing the wrong dream. Seppuku is only one way for a Japanese male to remedy such a great loss of face and Alex remains true to his ancestry or at least he tries to, but even that is denied him when the sea goddess Lemanja suddenly pops into his life and demands a new deck of cards. In orchestrating one final meeting with his former partner, the goddess will give him a chance to recoup his losses and win the one hand he'd wager everything for.