Husband By Arrangement. Sara Wood

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      “Let’s be frank. Our grandparents have hopes of marriage between us, yes?”

      “So I was led to believe,” she hedged.

      “Okay. To be honest, initially I didn’t like the idea of being pushed into marriage with you,” he told her.

      “Thanks.”

      His eyes danced. And more. There was…admiration? Certainly desire. In buckets. She felt her body quiver.

      “My pleasure,” he said with a chuckle, nibbling her knuckles.

      “So?” Stupid though it was, the feel of his mouth was robbing her of speech. Or perhaps it was the lowered flutter of his impossibly thick black lashes. “So,” she said, appalled at how croaky she sounded. “What changed your mind?”

      “You did.”

      He was croaky, too. Maddy began to panic. Dex wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her!

      “I did?” she squeaked in alarm.

      “Very much so,” he murmured. “You are…” His slow gaze burned all the way from the top of her head to her feet, stopping at strategic points in between. “A knockout,” he said on a husky out-breath.

      Legally wed,

      But he’s never said…

      “I love you.”

      They’re…

      The series where marriages are made in

       haste…and love comes later…

      Look out for more Wedlocked! stories in

       Harlequin Presents^® throughout 2003.

      Coming in July

      Bride by Blackmail #2334

       by

       Carole Mortimer

      Husband by Arrangement

      Sara Wood

      MILLS & BOON

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      MADDY had waited long enough. She had to see. Catching her friend’s hand in a desperate plea, she steeled herself for the result.

      ‘Let me look!’ she begged.

      Debbie laughed. ‘Patience. Just a little more lipgloss…. There! Ready?’

      Maddy nodded, her mouth horribly dry. So much rested on this! The chair was swung around to face the mirror and she found herself staring at a totally different person.

      ‘Oh, my gosh!’ she breathed in awe.

      Instead of being outrageous, as she’d planned, the burgundy hair flattered her pale colouring and made her solemn grey eyes gleam with a smoky, almost wicked allure. Her lips parted in astonishment and her poppy-coloured mouth pouted back at her as if it were kissed forty times a night.

      As if! She smiled wryly. Since her last, barely-got-started relationship had gone pear-shaped, her grandfather was the only one who kissed her. On the cheek. And only to say goodnight. Dear Grandpa, he didn’t believe in displays of affection, even though he did care for her.

      That was why he was set on her marrying the grandson of his ex-business partner in Portugal. And why she was all done up like a dog’s dinner—in a desperate effort to look totally unsuitable as the future bride for Dexter Fitzgerald. And why, in a few hours, she was flying out to a country she’d left almost twenty years ago.

      ‘It’s a bit…over the top,’ Maddy said doubtfully, shocked by the brazen hussy in the mirror.

      ‘’Course it is. How else are you to be rejected point-blank? You said the Fitzgeralds were traditional-minded. Trust me. They’ll be appalled.’

      Maddy began to smile. Her hopes rose.

      ‘I think they might!’ she conceded.

      ‘Now you’ve got to learn to do a come-hither walk,’ commanded Debbie. ‘Like this.’

      Egged on by her giggling friend, Maddy leapt from the chair and followed Debbie, exaggerating the swing of her leather-clad hips till she felt her pelvis would break loose from its moorings.

      ‘It’s too ridiculous!’ she protested, as they fell in a heap of helpless laughter on her friend’s bed. ‘I could never walk like that in public!’

      ‘Duckie, you’ve got to overdo it if you’re to succeed. That’s why we bought the gaudiest clothes from the charity shop.’ Debbie’s face grew serious. ‘Look, you have no choice. Your grandfather’s been on and on at you for ages. He’s mad keen for you to marry this Dexter guy. This will definitely foil his plans.’

      ‘He wants me to be secure,’ she defended loyally. ‘He thinks I’m a hopeless case because I’m thirty. And I’m unemployed, now that the children’s home has closed. I’m going to miss working there,’ she sighed. ‘But you can understand his concern. He’s old and sick and worried what’ll happen when he dies.’

      Debbie sniffed. ‘Personally, I’d tell my grandpa to stay out of my life.’ Her face softened and she hugged Maddy warmly. ‘Trouble is, being the kind, caring person you are, you’re trying not to upset him. So here you are, apparently submissive and on the brink of flying to Portugal to meet your eager bridegroom and—’

      ‘Hell-bent on behaving like a badly behaved gold-digger to put him off!’ Maddy giggled, batting her eyes like mad.

      ‘Brilliant! You can do it!’ crowed Debbie.

      ‘Can I?’

      ‘Sure! Psyche yourself up. Look at yourself!’ encouraged Debbie.

      She dragged Maddy back to the mirror. Fiddling with her alarmingly low-cut top, Maddy thought of the prim and grim Sofia Fitzgerald, Dex’s grandmother. Sofia would loathe a money-grabbing vamp as a prospective bride for Dex—and from what she remembered of him, he’d want a docile, nicely dressed woman to be his wife, not a flighty-looking piece with a come-hither walk.

      Maddy pushed back her uncertainties. It would be the