The Bride Means Business

The Bride Means Business
Anne Marie Winston

MARRIAGE PARTNERSJillian Kerr never thought she'd see ex-fiance Dax Piersall again - let alone marry him. But when the powerful executive offered her a business partnership in exchange for marriage, she tried to refuse… only, his seductive eyes were ambushing her heart!Dax remembered Jillian had a mind for business-and a body for sin - and he planned on keeping his heart out of this arrangement. Yet the vibrant, self-assured woman who stood before him made him want to be a better man. Could these two passionate souls realize what was missing from their lives was… each other?BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES: Three small-town friends bring three of the sexiest, most powerful men to their knees!

“You Know What I Missed All These Years I Was Away From You?” (#ue7a120ef-cecd-5c45-b1a4-d684a2475c81)Letter to Reader (#u05cfd92f-4ea2-5a08-b361-5c43f0d30c0c)Title Page (#u7df2bba3-4430-522a-a924-e1aa8cdcc480)About the Author (#ud5ca4330-9b01-5dea-a66d-d47f71ff9cab)Dedication (#uab262ee2-17ef-5eca-8c23-386aa2def6f5)Chapter One (#u03ff8588-baba-5827-88cb-af0c64d77e48)Chapter Two (#u1b223cdc-0da3-5a7e-9f77-642e87a98461)Chapter Three (#u55e56d4f-e395-519e-8a70-beab42375bef)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)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)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“You Know What I Missed All These Years I Was Away From You?”

Dax asked Jillian, his expression strangely intense.

She looked at him sharply. “What?”

“Memories and someone to share them with.”

Her eyes, wide and blue as a summer sky, were luminous as she nodded.

“I feel alone, too,” Jillian said with an odd tone in her voice. Abruptly she turned away. “Let’s just forget it, Dax.”

He stepped closer, standing directly behind her without touching her. “I’ve discovered that I like remembering.”

“I don’t. It’s better just to forget things.” There was such sadness in her voice that he turned her to face him. Slowly he drew her to him. She didn’t resist, and gently Dax pressed her head against his shoulder.

And for the first time since he’d set foot in town again, Dax felt as if he had truly come home....

Dear Reader,

Spring is in the air—and all thoughts turn toward love. With six provocative romances from Silhouette Desire, you too can enjoy a season of new beginnings...and happy endings!

Our March MAN OF THE MONTH is Lass Small’s The Best Husband in Texas. This sexy rancher is determined to win over the beautiful widow he’s loved for years! Next, Joan Elliott Pickart returns with a wonderful love story—Just My Joe. Watch sparks fly between handsome, wealthy Joe Dillon and the woman he loves.

Don’t miss Beverly Barton’s new miniseries, 3 BABIES FOR 3 BROTHERS, which begins with His Secret Child. The town golden boy is reunited with a former flame—and their child. Popular Anne Marie Winston offers the third title in her BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES series, as a sexy heroine forms a partnership with her lost love in The Bride Means Business. Then an expectant mom matches wits with a brooding rancher in Carol Grace’s Expecting.... And Virginia Dove debuts explosively with The Bridal Promise, when star-crossed lovers marry for convenience.

This spring, please write and tell us why you read Silhouette Desire books. As part of our 20

anniversary celebration in the year 2000, we’d like to publish some of this fan mail in the books—so drop us a line, tell us how long you’ve been reading Desire books and what you love about the series. And enjoy our March titles!

Regards,

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Bride Means Business

Anne Marie Winston

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

ANNE MARIE WINSTON has believed in happy endings all her life. Having the opportunity to share them with her readers gives her great joy. Anne Marie enjoys figure skating and working in the gardens of her south-central Pennsylvania home.

For Foxy

1979-1998

It still seems as if you just left me yesterday.

Purr in peace, my Old Girl.

One

A drop of sweat slipped between her shoulder blades, caught for a moment on the barrier of her bra, and then slithered on down the very middle of her back. As Jillian Kerr negotiated the uneven ground in her very high heels, her black summer suit felt as if it had turned to heavy wool. The sun was bright, and beneath her fingertips, the dark jacket of her escort felt hot.

After a week of rain, Baltimore had enjoyed three gorgeous days of nice weather, the wonderful Indian-summer weather for which mid-Atlantic Septembers were famous. The ground had dried, the grass was thick and green, summer birds still spread their song on the air.

Jillian didn’t notice any of it.

The twin graves were a freshly slashed scar in the expanse of mown lawn as she walked around them to the canopy where the graveside service would be conducted. She released the arm of the friend at her side, and he dropped back to stand behind her with other friends from the stores near hers as she took a seat, alone, on the folding chairs reserved for family.

Only there was no family. Other than her, and she didn’t really count. She and Charles had grown up together, were practically sister and brother, but in the most accurate sense of the word, they hadn’t been related. And Alma, Charles’s wife, was an only child of deceased parents, so there was no one there to represent her, either. Jillian was the only family there was left to mourn either of her two dear friends.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true; there was other family. She had sent a very correct and courteous facsimile to share the sad news. But in her heart she was sure that she was the only one who would care enough to show up here today.

Carefully, she sidestepped the land mines in that train of thought and came out on the other side of sorrow as the minister began the service and the hushed voices in the crowd quieted. Her eyes stung, and she blinked once, shaking back her mane of blond hair and staring fixedly past the identical white caskets at the trees on the far side of the hill. She didn’t cry. Ever. She repeated the words over and over as the clergyman eulogized Alma Bender Piersall and Charles Edward Piersall, local businessman, tireless community volunteer, active church member, generous contributor to many charities and her dearest childhood friend.

Charles Edward Piersall also had been responsible for the devastating sequence of events that had taken her only chance at love and made her who she was today. And still, even though she probably should have hated his sorry butt, her memories of Charles were warm and filled with love.

They’d ridden tricycles and bicycles together, played kick-ball and climbed trees. They’d gone skinny-dipping in the creek as teens until his father found out and tanned their fannies, criticized each other’s dates and walked arm-inarm to their high school graduation ceremony. They’d been there for each other during the darkest periods in each of their lives. And although she hadn’t seen as much of him in recent years, the knowledge that Charles had been just across the city had been a sort of lifeline, an anchor when the loneliness threatened to overwhelm her.

A ripple of whispering in the crowd behind her caught her attention and she glanced around, annoyed at the commotion. preparing to quell the chatterers with one of her best freezing stares. Honestly, people today had no sense of propriety. Or plain good manners.

Movement caught her eye. It was—it couldn’t be! As she recognized the dark head surging toward the front of the crowd, for one strange moment the ground rose up at her, tilted crazily, and settled back down only when she took a deep breath. She whipped her head back and faced front again, just as Charles’s older brother Dax—Travers Daxon Piersall the Fourth, if you please—stepped from the crowd and walked to her side, folding himself into the chair on her right.

Oh, God. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Panic rose. She nearly bolted from her chair before she remembered where she was, and she forced her quivering muscles to stillness. Flight was not an option. Besides, she told herself grimly, you aren’t the one who makes a habit of running away. That thought brought forth such a surge of unexpected rage that she clenched her hands into fists, fighting the resentment and hurt that had hardened into pure hatred years ago. She’d be damned if she’d let Dax’s unexpected, unwanted arrival chase her away.

The buzz of conversation grew fiercer, and in her peripheral vision, she saw his head turn. And the crowd grew quiet.

Why, oh, why hadn’t he gotten flabby around the middle or worn bottle-thick glasses? Walked with a cane. Been follically challenged? Any little flaw would have done.

She hadn’t taken more than that one horrible glance of identification, but it had been enough to show her that Dax hadn’t lost one iota of his looks. If anything, his dark masculine presence had only intensified in his years away, and his shoulders looked as broad and strong as ever. The long thigh resting just to the right of her own, mere inches away, stretched taut over lean, muscled flesh hidden beneath the sober dark suit pants. A memory of that thigh, and the ecstasy it had brought pushing between her own, tried to roll across the mental screen in her head, and she ruthlessly chopped it into a million pieces.

Thank God she hadn’t let her own figure go. Thank God. She looked damn good and she knew it. Her body was in great shape, courtesy of her never-ending calorie-counting, the stair machine, the free weights and legions of expensive skin lotions and hair appointments. Her nails were flawlessly lacquered in an appropriate, understated pale peach, her hair perfectly styled, and her black summer suit, bought during a terrific sale at a cute little boutique at Owings Mills Mall, fit every slender, sculpted, hard-earned curve perfectly.