Bride for Hire

Bride for Hire
Jessica Hart

For better and for worse!Seth Carrington needed a girlfriend and Daisy needed a ticket to the Caribbean…it seemed like a fair exchange! But having survived Seth's extremely thorough interviewing technique–which included kissing–Daisy began to have her doubts. Seth was high-handed and completely ruthless…except when he smiled; then he was devastatingly attractive.Smile or no, Daisy had to face facts: her job was strictly temporary; she was being paid to act as a decoy for Seth's secret affair with a glamorous woman. The terms of the agreement were crystal-clear–but there was no clause about love!Jessica Hart has a wonderful talent for "building a stunning love story you won't want to see end."–Romantic Times

“I knew you were wrong for the job from the start.” (#u7071f5e5-002b-5d94-933c-a331dfbfb554)About the Author (#u28267339-4817-53a1-a270-fe1cc61591ee)Title Page (#u3ec32b3e-f899-518a-87bf-369f857ce010)CHAPTER ONE (#u7438efa4-176d-5db2-8711-d01e0ce6f322)CHAPTER TWO (#u7e13c222-87b4-59fc-801b-a0e2c1eb6e03)CHAPTER THREE (#ud2149ba3-887b-51e6-88c0-dcbd39a48e00)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I knew you were wrong for the job from the start.”

Seth continued savagely. “You don’t look right, you don’t dress right, and you’ve absolutely no idea how to behave.”

“B-but what about our agreement?” stammered Daisy.

“Since you haven’t stuck by a word of it, I hardly think that you’re in a position to quote it back to me now,” he pointed out with a cold look. “You’ve been nothing but trouble, and I’m not putting up with you any longer.”

“But you’ve told everyone that you’re in love with me now,” said Daisy desperately.

“I’ll find someone else,” Seth said flatly. “And next time I’ll make sure I get a girl who doesn’t argue!”

Jessica Hart

had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and Outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition PA and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon. She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain.

Look out for Jessica Hart’s next book, BIRTHDAY BRIDE, (#3511)

out in July1998 as part of our special new series

THE BIG EVENT!

Bride for Hire

Jessica Hart

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

CHAPTER ONE

DID she dare?

Daisy chewed her bottom lip as she looked from the telephone to the letter in her hand. It was short and enigmatic, the bold black scrawl thrusting itself across the page as if the writer was used to expressing himself in a blunter, less elusive style. ‘...your name given to me by a mutual acquaintance...believe you might be interested in a proposition I have in mind...someone of your talents and discretion required for a forthcoming trip to the Caribbean...’ Daisy’s eyes skimmed the letter again, although she knew it by heart, and stopped at that tantalising mention of the Caribbean, just as they had done when she’d first ripped open the envelope—before she had realised that it wasn’t addressed to her at all.

‘I will be in London from May 19,’ the letter had concluded curtly, with the name and telephone number of one of London’s most exclusive hotels. ‘Call me if you are interested.’ It was signed in the same aggressive script: ‘Seth Carrington’.

Daisy looked back at the telephone. She didn’t recognise the name, although it had a vaguely familiar ring to it, but everything about the letter was suspicious—not least the fact that Seth Carrington wrote like a man used to dictating letters and having them typed immaculately for him. Why had he written this one by hand? If she had any sense she would fold up the letter, put it back in its envelope and return it to the sender with a message saying that it had been opened in error.

But being sensible wouldn’t get her to the Caribbean and it wouldn’t help her find Tom. Wiping her palms on her skirt, Daisy reached for the phone.

‘I’d like to speak to Seth Carrington, please,’ she said when she was finally put through to someone who announced herself as Mr Carrington’s personal assistant.

‘May I ask who’s calling?’

Daisy glanced at the top of the letter. ‘Dee Pearce,’ she said, wondering if the other girl could hear the lie.

‘I’m afraid Mr Carrington is unavailable at the moment.’ The voice at the end of the phone was cool with suspicion. ‘Would you care to leave a message?’

Daisy hesitated. What could she say? What would the unknown Dee be likely to say? In the end, she just left her number and rang off, feeling depressed. That the letter with its prospect of the Caribbean had arrived at 4 Lawrence Crescent instead of 4 Lawrence Street had been a mere coincidence, but when she had discovered that Dee Pearce had gone away without leaving a forwarding address Daisy had been sure that fate was taking a hand.

That’s when the idea had first come to her, but it had still taken her all night to work up the courage to telephone Seth Carrington and he might at least have had the decency to be there! Daisy didn’t think she would have the nerve to try again.

The whole idea was madness, anyway, she told herself, slumping down into a chair. It was pretty obvious that whatever Seth Carrington’s interesting proposition was it wasn’t going to be anything her mother would be likely to approve of, and while Daisy was prepared to do almost anything to find Tom at the moment there were limits. She would just have to find some other way to get to the Caribbean to look for him. Seth Carrington would never ring back, anyway.

The phone rang.

Daisy jumped, her heart hammering as she jerked upright. It was her mother, she persuaded herself as she took a deep breath to calm herself. Her mother or Lisa or Robert, but her palm was still slippery as she picked up the receiver.

‘Hello,’ she said warily.

‘This is Seth Carrington.’ It was an American voice. deep and gravelly, with a harsh edge of impatient authority. He sounded just like his writing. ‘Is that Dee Pearce?’

Daisy teetered on the brink of indecision, conscious that this was the point of no return. She could say, No, I’m sorry, I’ve wasted your time; it’s all a mistake. That was the only sensible thing to say, and she had every intention of saying it until she opened her mouth and somehow ‘Yes,’ came out instead.

He had caught the momentary hesitation, though. ‘You don’t sound very sure,’ he commented, and something about the sarcastic tone put Daisy’s back up.

‘Yes, I’m Dee Pearce,’ she lied coldly. ‘You took me by surprise, that’s all.’

‘Easily surprised, aren’t you?’ said Seth Carrington in the same hatefully sardonic voice. ‘You only asked me to ring you five minutes ago. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already?’

‘Of course not,’ said Daisy. Conscious of being forced onto the defensive, she opted for attack. ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to be available at the moment,’ she went on, matching his sarcastic tone. ‘Your secretary certainly gave me the impression that you were far too busy to go anywhere near a phone so, naturally, I wasn’t expecting you to call back right away.’

The brief silence at the other end of the phone indicated that Seth Carrington wasn’t used to being answered back. ‘Maria’s there to filter out unwanted calls,’ he said after a moment. ‘I didn’t tell her about you. I’m sure you’ll agree that the fewer people who know about you the better.’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Daisy, mystified.

‘And now, since I am extremely busy, perhaps we could get down to business?’ he continued brusquely. ‘I take it Ed has explained the situation to you?’

Ed? Who was Ed? ‘I’ve just had your letter,’ she said cautiously.

Seth swore under his breath. ‘He said he’d ring you before he went back to the States,’ he said, and Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. If Ed knew Dee Pearce it was just as well he was going to be on the other side of the Atlantic.

‘There was a rather vague message on my answering machine,’ she said, rather surprised at her own capacity for invention. ‘Perhaps he couldn’t get hold of me and didn’t want to leave too explicit a message.’

Seth only grunted. ‘I don’t want to explain over the phone. You’d better come up here.’ He was clearly thinking aloud. ‘I may as well take a look at you, anyway.’ There was a sound of impatiently rustled papers. ‘I’ve got a window at four o’clock. Can you make it by then?’

Daisy reflected that she had had more gracious invitations, but this wasn’t the time to object to Seth Carrington’s telephone manner. If this was a job that took her to the Caribbean then surely it was worth putting up with a little rudeness. ‘Yes, I can be there.’

She wasn’t surprised when he refrained from going into raptures of delight. ‘Don’t be late,’ was all he said and then added, just before he put the phone down on her, ‘And be discreet.’

Daisy was left holding the receiver buzzing in her ear. She put it down slowly, hardly able to believe what she had done. Had that really been her, Daisy Deare—whose most foolhardy adventure to date had been driving through a red light on a deserted street at two in the morning—calmly agreeing to meet a strange man in a hotel to discuss a suspicious-sounding proposition?

For a moment she was tempted not to go, and then she thought of her stepfather, grimly hanging onto life in his hospital bed; of her mother’s haggard face, and the guilt in her eyes whenever she thought about Tom. Daisy knew that her mother was convinced that Tom had left because of her, and they both knew that what Jim Johnson wanted more than anything was to see his son again before he died. If they could find him.