For Better For Worse

For Better For Worse
PENNY JORDAN

Penny Jordan is an award-winning New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of more than 200 books with sales of over 100 million copies. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection of her novels, many of which are available for the first time in eBook right now.This New York Times bestselling author delivers a compelling novel of three couples whose love is sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Nick parades his affairs in front of Fern even as he taunts her about his despised stepbrother – her forbidden love. Eleanor seems to have it all, but suddenly her life and her happy new marriage to Marcus begin unravelling. Zoe and Ben are exact opposites, but together they make a perfect team . . . until the unforeseen happens.

For Better for Worse

Penny Jordan

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

Table of Contents

Cover (#uc9545ab5-2895-5b61-b615-5cee94c8457c)

Title Page (#u3af4a293-5e23-50c9-b869-4942075f3cee)

PROLOGUE (#u78ef9369-e662-5b14-bd84-ba4ddad862e6)

CHAPTER ONE (#u4678053e-ed8c-5bd6-9d2e-8d57c274de06)

CHAPTER TWO (#u457567d8-d48e-5745-91cf-a763729211be)

CHAPTER THREE (#ud58a1933-ef2b-5613-b657-ef59238fee23)

CHAPTER FOUR (#ud8ac23e6-5f75-596c-8386-1641ce3e60a4)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u4a725302-896b-5c91-b9dd-ac86fbe75094)

CHAPTER SIX (#u7e396e93-d982-5297-abbd-416a18203072)

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)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ulink_4983fa5f-c106-53c1-9dfb-0cac24384cb1)

AS FERN saw Nick walk into the kitchen, her stomach muscles tensed.

She had heard him arrive from upstairs, had witnessed the impatience with which he had slewed the car to a halt and climbed out, slamming the door, and then glancing up at the house.

She had stepped back from the window then, an automatic and very betraying gesture, pausing as she caught sight of herself in her dressing-table mirror. She looked strained and tired, her eyes empty and lifeless… as empty and lifeless as her marriage to Nick?

Abruptly she had turned away from the mirror and hurried downstairs.

It was her own fault that Nick was in a bad mood, of course. She should not have raised the subject of how much time he was spending working last night. He had always hated her ‘interfering in his life’, as he called it. She had learned early on in her marriage that Nick loathed any form of restraint, even the mildest hint of criticism.

What was wrong with her? he had demanded to know last night. Didn’t she realise how fortunate she was, how many women would gladly change places with her?

‘You’re my wife,’ he had told her. ‘Nothing can change that.’

A promise, or a threat?

She tensed now, guiltily trying to suppress her rebellious thoughts. Nick was right. She was lucky to be married to him, especially after…

As he came towards her, her tension increased, her muscles locking. Automatically she looked away from him, pain a hard-edged lump in her throat. Nick was a very handsome man, and yet these days she found that sometimes she could hardly bear to look at him.

‘I love you… I need you, and I’m never, ever going to let you go,’ he had told her when he’d proposed to her, and she, swept off her feet, totally overwhelmed by his intensity, his insistence, dizzy and bemused by the speed with which he had taken over her life, had been unable to resist the pressure he had put on her.