A Wife on Paper

A Wife on Paper
Liz Fielding

A convenient wife… An inconvenient love…Francesca walked into the room and Guy Dymoke was mesmerized. But she was pregnant with Guy's brother's baby. An impossible situation…and Guy had been hiding his feelings ever since.Years later, Francesca is now a widow, and when the will is read she's stunned to discover she's been placed into Guy's safekeeping…as his convenient wife! Guy wants to give Francesca and her son all the care in the world. He also yearns to tell her how much he really loves her. But he'll wait for the day that she gives her love freely in return….

Rita

Award-winning author Liz Fielding “gets better and better with every book!”

—Romantic Times

Further praise for Liz Fielding

About The Bridesmaid’s Reward:

“The characters are out-of-this-world fun, the scenes and dialogue laugh-out-loud funny and the story is delightful.”

—Romantic Times

About A Suitable Groom:

“A sparkling, bubbly romance with witty dialogue, humor, and a deliciously scrumptious hero.”

—Bookbug on the Web

About His Desert Rose:

“Once again, talented storyteller Liz Fielding has given readers another truly remarkable tale of love conquering all, utilizing intense emotional scenes, dynamic characters, a powerful internal conflict and an exotic desert setting.”

—Romantic Times

About The Best Man and the Bridesmaid:

“A delightful tale with a fresh spin on a fan-favorite storyline, snappy dialogue and charming characters.”

—Romantic Times

Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve, when she won a writing competition at school. After that early success there was quite a gap—during which she was busy working in Africa and the Middle East, getting married and having children—before her first book was published in 1992. Now readers worldwide fall in love with her irresistible heroes, and adore her independent-minded heroines. Visit Liz’s Web site for news and extracts of upcoming books at www.lizfielding.com

A Wife on Paper

Liz Fielding

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

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

HIS brother was late, the restaurant was crowded, noisy, the kind of fashionable look-at-me-I’ve-arrived place he loathed, and Guy wished he’d made an excuse, stuck to his original plan to have a sandwich at his desk as he worked through the evening.

A rush of cold air as the door opened behind him gave him hope that his ordeal would soon be over, but as he turned he saw that it wasn’t Steve but a young woman rushing to get in out of the rain.

She paused momentarily, framed in the entrance, spotlit by the bright lights of the cocktail bar against the darkness outside.

Time stretched like elastic. The earth stopped turning. Everything slowed down. He felt as if he could count every one of the raindrops sparkling in her corn gold hair.

It was tousled, as if it had been caught by the gusting wind that she seemed to have brought into the restaurant with her, stirring everyone so that they turned to look. Kept on looking. Maybe it was because she was laughing, as if running through the rain was something she did for fun. Because she was a breath of fresh air…

She lifted her arms to comb her fingers through her hair, shake it back into place, and the dress she was wearing rode up to expose half a yard of thigh. When she dropped her hands and the hem descended, the scooped neckline of her dress fell too, offering a glimpse of what the clinging fabric so enticingly suggested.

Nothing about her was flat; everything about her seemed an open invitation to his hands to describe her, to stroke the sinuous lines of her body. She wasn’t beautiful exactly. Her nose lacked classical perfection. Her mouth was too big, but her silver-fox eyes sparkled as if she was lit up from within and the glow that emanated from her eclipsed every other woman in the room.

And, as time caught up with them, his body reacted as if she’d touched his personal blue touch-paper.

Pulse, heart rate, all the physical responses leapt into overdrive, but it was more than a lustful response to the kind of stimuli that probably had half the men in the room in the same condition.

It was like coming face to face with destiny. Coming face to face with the reason for your existence.

As he rose slowly to his feet she saw him, their gazes locked, and for a split second the laughter froze on her lips, and he thought that she felt it too. Then his brother was there, closing the door, cutting off the rush of cold air, breaking the connection between them as he put his arm around the girl’s waist, pulled her close against him.

Something hot, possessive, swept through him and he wanted to grab Steve, pull him away, demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing. Except, of course, it was obvious. He was saying to the world—saying to him—this woman is mine. And, as if the gesture wasn’t enough, he grinned and said, ‘Guy, I’m glad you could make it. I really want you to meet Francesca.’ He looked down at her with the look of a man who’d won the Lottery. ‘She’s moving in with me. She’s having my baby…’ Make that a man who’d won the Lottery twice.

‘Mr Dymoke…’ He started at a touch to his shoulder, opened his eyes to see the stewardess smiling down at him. ‘We’re about to land.’

He dragged his hands over his face in an effort to dispel the lingering wisps of a dream that, even after three years, continued to haunt him.

He straightened his chair, fastened his seat belt, checked the time. He should just make it.

Guy Dymoke was the first person she saw as she stepped from the car. That wasn’t what surprised her. He was the kind of man who would stand out in any crowd. Tall, broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, his thick dark hair lightened by the sun, he made everyone else look as if they were two-dimensional figures in a black and white photograph.

The effect was mesmerising. She saw it in the effect he had on the people around him. Had to steel herself against it, even now.