Joined By Marriage - Carole Mortimer

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      “I just wouldn’t like us to become—close, and then discover a relationship between us is impossible.” About the Author Books by Carole Mortimer Title Page Dedication PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE Copyright

      “I just wouldn’t like us to become—close, and then discover a relationship between us is impossible.”

      Nathan pulled her into his arms. “We’re already close, Brianna,” he murmured huskily, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. “Didn’t this morning prove that?”

      CAROLE MORTIMER says: “I was born in England, the youngest of three children—I have two older brothers. I started writing in 1978, and have now written over ninety books for Harlequin Presents®.

      

      “I have four sons—Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie dog called Merlyn. I’m in a very happy relationship with Peter senior, we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live on the Isle of Man.”

      Books by Carole Mortimer

      HARLEQUIN PRESENTS

      1863—ONE-MAN WOMAN

      1894—WILDEST DREAMS

      1929—A MARRIAGE TO REMEMBER

      1965—THE DIAMOND BRIDE

      

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

      Joined by Marriage

      Carole Mortimer

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Peter,

      Eternity

      PROLOGUE

      A SINGLE sheet of paper lay on the table in front of her, the words written upon it. as she looked down at them, at once seeming not enough and yet at the same time too much. Perhaps she shouldn’t have written this letter. But a part of her had wanted to so much. She couldn’t let go without leaving something, something to say that she had been here at all.

      She picked up the letter and read it once more, unaware that her tears fell onto the paper. She had read the words so many times already, knew them all by heart. And yet she read them again, reluctant to let them go, too, now that the time had come.

      Would they ever be read by the person she’d written them for, anyway?

      Or would someone, perhaps someone wiser than her, deem it better that her letter be destroyed?

      Slender fingers tightened on the sheet of paper as she held it to her protectively. It wouldn’t be destroyed. It would reach the person it was intended for. It had to. It was all she had left to give. Of herself.

      She had long since given up the emotional struggle as to whether what she was doing was right. She had taken that inevitable step some time ago. What was right and what was wrong had passed long since. And leaving this letter, whether right or wrong, was something she needed to do. Had to do.

      Then do it, that warring voice inside her head instructed. Do it, and let that be an end to it.

      An end...

      This letter was the end.

      Or a beginning...

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE letter was decidedly unhelpful, Brianna decided. It told her nothing. And yet at the same time it promised her everything.

      Dear Miss Gibson,

      Could you please contact our office at the above address, either by telephone or mail, at your earliest convenience, so that we might arrange a time for you to call in and see one of our partners?

      The notepaper heading was that of a firm of prestigious London lawyers, but the signature at the bottom of the short request wasn’t that of any of the partners listed at the top of the letter.

      Everything and nothing.

      ‘What have you got there, sis?’ Her brother Gary leant over her shoulder, the bowl of cereal he was eating for breakfast tipping precariously in the direction of Brianna’s plate of toast as he did so.

      Brianna reached up and straightened the bowl. ‘A case of mistaken identity, I think,’ she said dryly, crushing the letter into a ball in preparation for throwing it into the bin when she had finished eating.

      ‘What’s that, love?’ her father said vaguely as he came into the kitchen straightening his tie, a tall, loose-limbed man in his early fifties.

      She shook her head, smiling. ‘Just a firm of lawyers who haven’t done their homework very well and have sent a letter to me by mistake.’ She stood up, the letter already forgotten. ‘Would you like some toast for—Dad, what is it?’ She frowned as she saw he hadn’t moved to the refrigerator for his customary glass of early-morning orange juice but had come to a sudden halt just inside the kitchen door, his face pale. ‘Dad?’ she prompted again worriedly.

      He sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Could I see the letter?’ he said abruptly.

      ‘This?’ Brianna looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in her hand. ‘But I just told you, it’s obviously a case of mistaken identity—’

      ‘Landris, Landris and Davis,’ her father said flatly, his gaze steadily meeting hers.

      Her eyes widened as her father correctly named the firm of lawyers who had sent her the letter. How on earth—?

      ‘Please, Brianna.’ He held out his hand for the letter, then slowly and meticulously straightened out the creases before attempting to read its typed words.

      ‘What’s going on, sis?’ Gary asked in a loud whisper, his cereal being eaten now as he got ready to leave for school. In his final year at school, and taking his ‘A’ levels, Gary looked like most of his peers: hair a bit too long,

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