Almost A Wife

Almost A Wife
Eva Rutland

“You’re quite a woman, Lisa.”

Tray continued. “You deserve more than…than this,” he said, his gesture taking in the kitchen. “We have to decide where we go from here.”

“We?” Lisa blinked. “I don’t know about you, but I am very well prepared to take care of myself.”

“You’ve proved that. But we both know this is temporary. I might be able to make you an offer….”

Eva Rutland began writing when her four children, now all successful professionals, were growing up. Eva lives in California with her husband, Bill, who actively supports and encourages her writing career.

Books by Eva Rutland

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3439—MARRIAGE BAIT

3490—THE WEDDING TRAP

3518—THE MILLION-DOLLAR MARRIAGE

3550—HER OWN PRINCE CHARMING

Almost a Wife

Eva Rutland

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

With love, to my delightful granddaughter, Chelsea, and her bear.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE (#u6bda4659-4b00-598e-a21b-d9d8891d0d47)

CHAPTER ONE (#u1133cd07-0a44-5bd0-85d7-e5dde2d89c09)

CHAPTER TWO (#u34c75050-c359-5692-a35e-c01f832be9bd)

CHAPTER THREE (#u1d2e4dc1-b08b-5454-9639-f2b29fe7e90a)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u24b3c055-3223-5b4f-9924-597261cb3700)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE

LISA REYNOLDS gazed with apprehension at the empty lobby of the Bonus Bank Building. No one standing by the bank of elevators. No telling when someone would come and choose the one marked Floors 21 to 40.

She walked to that elevator, and courageously lifted her finger.

She couldn’t push the button.

This was crazy! Just because it happened once didn’t mean you were going to be stuck every time you stepped into an elevator.

She wasn’t crazy. Hadn’t she breezed through college, and earned a master’s degree in business by the time she was twenty-three! Now, at twenty-six, she was director of research and development at CTI—Computer Technology Incorporated.

Not anymore, she reminded herself.

Well, she hadn’t lost the job because she wasn’t darn good at it.

Mergers! That was what was crazy. All these takeover, downsizing shenanigans going on in business today.

Anyway, it was CTI’s loss, not hers. She already had feelers out. With her qualifications, she’d be hired by the competition in a hot minute.

Maybe with an office on the ground floor, she thought, trying to laugh at herself. Why couldn’t she lose this ridiculous phobia about elevators!

She had almost overcome it. Out of necessity. She could hardly have climbed the stairs to her thirty-fourth floor office each working day for one whole year. She had compromised. She would board the elevator only if someone got on with her. That way she wouldn’t be alone in death or disaster.

She should have come earlier. Not everybody had lost their job, and the elevators would have been crowded with workers.

Bad timing. Stupid to think being a little late didn’t matter because it was her last day.

She straightened hopefully as a woman breezed into the lobby. But the woman stopped at the one to twenty-block. Lisa stepped back as if waiting for someone. She pretended to be studying the mural on the opposite wall while gazing surreptitiously at the woman. She looked very chic in a smart gabardine business suit, one leather gloved hand clutching a smart leather attaché case.

Like me, Lisa thought, touching a hand to the cloud of silky black hair that framed her face in a smart shoulder-length cut. I’m coiffured, manicured and groomed as sleek as the sleekest of women executives! And I’m more efficient than most. Sam Fraser said so.