Kate Hardy – Hotly Bedded, Conveniently Wedded (страница 1)
‘Look, if we get engaged—after you get the job we can quietly break off the engagement and go back to being how we are now.’ And because they weren’t getting married she wouldn’t have to tell him the truth about herself—about the miscarriages. Everything would be just fine.
She could see the relief in his eyes. ‘Thank you, Bel. I really appreciate this.’ He took her hand, raised it to his mouth and kissed her palm before folding her fingers over where his lips had touched her skin. ‘Any time I can return the favour, do something for you, you know I will.’
‘Hey. That’s what friends are for,’ she said, striving for lightness despite the fact that the touch of his mouth had sent desire zinging through her veins.
Though his words made her heart ache. Yes, there was something Alex could do for her. But it wasn’t going to happen, so there was no point in even letting herself think about it. A real marriage and babies weren’t on his agenda.
Praise for rising star author Kate Hardy:
About BREAKFAST AT GIOVANNI’S, winner of the Romance Novelists’ Association Romance prize 2008!
‘BREAKFAST AT GIOVANNI’S is simply terrific! Sexy, funny, tender, passionate and romantic, this engrossing tale features a loveable heroine and a gorgeous Italian hero who will make you swoon! Kate Hardy is a writer readers can count on in order to deliver an entertaining page-turner which they will devour in a single sitting and BREAKFAST AT GIOVANNI’S is certainly no exception!’
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About ONE NIGHT, ONE BABY
‘Romantic fiction does not get any better than this! Fresh, funny, heartwarming and absolutely unputdownable, ONE NIGHT, ONE BABY is vintage Kate Hardy! Featuring a lovely heroine, a gorgeous hero, sizzling sexual tension, an adorable cast of secondary characters and steamy romance, ONE NIGHT, ONE BABY is the perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter night!’
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Kate Hardy lives on the outskirts of Norwich with her husband, two small children, a dog—and too many books to count! She wrote her first book at age six, when her parents gave her a typewriter for her birthday. She had the first of a series of sexy romances published at twenty-five, and swapped a job in marketing communications for freelance health journalism when her son was born, so she could spend more time with him. She’s wanted to write for Harlequin Mills & Boon since she was twelve—and when she was pregnant with her daughter, her husband pointed out that writing Medical™ Romances would be the perfect way to combine her interest in health issues with her love of good stories. Now Kate has ventured into Modern Heat™ Romance, and HOTLY BEDDED, CONVENIENTLY WEDDED is her eighth novel for this series.
Kate is always delighted to hear from readers—do drop in to her website at www.katehardy.com
Also by this author:
SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
ONE NIGHT, ONE BABY
BREAKFAST AT GIOVANNI’S
HOTLY BEDDED, CONVENIENTLY WEDDED
BY
KATE HARDY
For Chrissy and Rich—the best aunt and uncle in the world—with love
CHAPTER ONE
‘RUN that by me again.’ No way could Isobel have heard him correctly. She was used to Alex asking if he could sleep on her sofa while he was in London between digs or on a flying visit— his own flat in London was let out to tenants—but this request…
She must’ve been hearing things.
‘Will you marry me?’ Alex repeated.
Exactly what Isobel thought he’d said.
Was this some kind of joke?
Unlikely, because he looked serious. Besides, Alex didn’t make that kind of joke. She frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Have you gone temporarily insane, or something?’
‘No. I just need to get married. And I think you’d be the perfect wife.’
Oh, no, she wouldn’t. She’d already failed spectacularly with Gary. ‘You get women posting their knickers to you. You could get married to any woman you wanted.’
He laughed. ‘They don’t post their knickers to me, Bel. That’s a vicious rumour started by Saskia.’
Saskia was Alex’s baby sister and had been Isobel’s best friend since they were toddlers. Though Isobel wasn’t so sure the comment was just sibling teasing. ‘I know for a fact you get asked out by more women than most men even dream about.’
‘Women who fantasise about The Hunter—not about me.’
‘You’re one and the same, in their eyes.’ In hers, too: Alex had presented three series of a popular television archaeology programme, based on a series of articles he’d written for a leading Sunday newspaper, and when Isobel had curled up to watch the programmes she’d thought he came across just as he was in real life. Clever and extremely well read, but with a bit of flamboyance that had women dropping at his feet and the kind of easy charm that meant he made friends effortlessly and couldn’t go anywhere without half a dozen people hailing him by name. It had been like that even before he’d been catapulted to fame as ‘The Hunter’, an explorer who delved in ancient places and found treasure; but nowadays, with national television exposure, he was recognised by people he’d never even met.
‘Just let it slip to one of your gossip-column friends that you’re looking for a wife and there’ll be queues for miles,’ she suggested.
‘Gossip-column journos aren’t anybody’s friends except their own,’ he corrected. ‘And none of those women would be like you—sensible and settled.’
She coughed. ‘You’re digging yourself deeper into that hole, Alex.’ He wanted to marry her because she was
Then again, marrying for love hadn’t exactly worked for her, had it? Her marriage hadn’t survived its final crisis.
‘Why do you need to get married anyway?’ she asked.
‘Because I need to get a job.’
‘This is beginning to feel like
Alex waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s got nothing to do with money.’
‘So what, then?’
‘It’s complicated,’ he hedged.
She leaned back against the sofa. ‘You’re not getting out of it that easily, Alex. Explain. Why do you need to get married?’
‘Because of this job. It’s perfect, Bel—Chief Archaeological Consultant for a firm that works with all the big property developers. When the developers plan to build on a site and discover remains of some structure they hadn’t even known existed, or we already know there are remains in the area that need to be conserved or recorded before any development work can start, I’d be in charge of a team of archaeologists who’d excavate the site.’
‘A desk job, you mean?’ She shook her head, scoffing. ‘No way. You’d last five minutes before you came down with a case of terminal boredom.’
‘It’s not a desk job. I’ll be doing the initial site visits and setting up the exploration, liaising with planning officers and talking people into giving us more time than they really want to for excavation work. Plus I’d be talking to the press, explaining the significance of the find.’
Put that way, it sounded just the sort of thing he’d enjoy doing. Alex would love the chance to be the first one in maybe hundreds of years to discover something. And the time pressure to excavate the site as thoroughly but as quickly as possible, so the builders could finish their job on schedule, would just add to the thrill for him. He thrived on being too busy.
‘I still don’t understand why you need a job. Aren’t you going to do the Hunter stuff any more?’
‘Of course I am.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s only for a few weeks a year.’
She understood where he was coming from. Alex was a workaholic—it was the only way to explain how he managed to pack more into two days than the average person did in a working week—and he liked it that way. ‘In other words, not enough to keep you busy and out of mischief.’
He laughed. ‘Exactly. I could do more TV work, I suppose, but I’ve talked to my agent and I agree with him that overexposure would be a mistake. It’s better to keep the series the length it is and leave people wanting more, rather than them seeing my face and thinking, Oh, no, not
‘What about your articles?’
He shrugged. ‘As you say, a desk job would drive me crazy. I need something with a lot of variety.’
‘Lecturing, then? If you had tutorial groups as well, that’d give you the variety because your students would all be different.’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘I’ve had offers, but to be honest I don’t really want to teach.’
Isobel frowned. ‘What’s wrong with what you do now?’
‘Nothing. I love freelancing. But I’m thirty-five, Bel. I need to be realistic about the future. In ten or twenty years I’m not going to want to spend hours at a time on my knees in a trench in the pouring rain. So I want to make the right career move now, while all my options are still wide open.’