Sandra Field - Jared's Love-Child

For a few seconds he said nothing, seconds that stretched like hours for Devon. She was shivering with nerves. Then he said, each word falling like a stone, “Who’s the father?”

“You are. Of course.”

“Of course?” he said silkily. “I don’t know the first thing about you—you could be sleeping with a dozen other men.”

Appalled, she gaped at him. “There aren’t any other men, and do you think I want to be pregnant by you? That I’m trying to trap you into marriage? Believe me, you’re the last man on earth I’d ever want to marry.”

He closed the gap between them. Devon fought for breath. “So what are you going to do?” he said with icy precision.

“I’m going to keep it, Jared. I’ll manage.”

“Yes, you will. Because you’ll be my wife.”

Legally wed,

But he’s never said…

“I love you.”

They’re…

Wedlocked!

The series where marriages are made in haste…and love comes later….

Look out for the next book in the WEDLOCKED!

miniseries next month:

Wife: Bought and Paid For by Jacqueline Baird

Harlequin Presents ®#2291

Penny has no choice but to agree to the Italian tycoon’s offer: he will pay the debts she owes if she becomes his wife! She will be his wife, bought and paid for—and he wants a wife in every sense of the word. Penny has discovered she’s still in love with Solo—but isn’t their marriage just a sham…?

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

SHE was hot. She was jet-lagged. She was late.

Very late. And the driveway to “The Oaks” was like one of those country roads that go on and on interminably and never arrive anywhere. With a sigh of impatience Devon Fraser wiped the perspiration from her forehead and tried to relax her neck muscles. Just to add to everything else that had gone wrong, she was—and had been for the last fifteen minutes—trapped in a line of limousines and chauffeur-driven Cadillacs occupied by wedding guests who were all early for the wedding. Early and fastidiously attired in formal suits and designer dresses.

Devon was driving her bright red Mazda convertible with the top down and she was wearing the same outfit she’d put on twenty-four hours ago to leave Yemen. A modestly styled and not very becoming green linen suit—now much crumpled—a blouse with a high neck, and undistinguished green pumps that were killing her feet.

No make-up. Almost no sleep. And absolutely no joy at the prospect of the next few hours.

It was her mother’s wedding she was late for. Her mother’s fifth wedding, to be accurate. This time to a man called Benson Holt. A wealthy man with a son named Jared, of whom Alicia, so she’d said, was terrified. Jared was to be best man to Devon’s maid-of-honor.

Devon had spent the last four days in negotiation with some very rich oil barons. She wasn’t about to be intimidated by a Toronto playboy called Jared Holt.

The wedding was scheduled for six p.m. and it was now five past five; she’d had to wait for several minutes to pass through the wrought-iron security gates at the entrance to Benson Holt’s property. It was going to take a small miracle, thought Devon, to get her to “The Oaks” and transform herself in less than an hour from a bedraggled dowd to a glowing maid-of-honor. All maids-of-honor glowed, didn’t they? Or was that the bride?

Devon didn’t know. She’d never been a bride and had no inclination to change that state of affairs. She could safely leave being a bride to her mother.

Venerable oak trees lined the driveway, the grass was velvet-smooth and all the fences—miles of fences—were painted a pristine white. The prospective groom was indeed rich. Surprise, surprise, Devon thought sardonically. While her mother was a professed romantic, Alicia had yet to marry a poor man.

Through the fences Devon could see open fields and placid groups of mares and foals, and for a moment she forgot how unforgivably late she was. She’d remembered to throw her riding gear into her suitcase in the ten-minute stop she’d allowed herself at her condo in Toronto. At least she might get one pleasurable experience out of this wedding. A ride on a thoroughbred.

Because she was, of course, dreading the wedding.

With a jangling of her nerves, she saw that the lane was widening into a expanse of groomed shrubs and statuary around a circular driveway. The house was an imposing mansion of Georgian brick with a great many shutters and chimneys. Ignoring the directions of the two uniformed men who were waving the cars to a parking area under the trees, Devon whipped out of the line-up, skidded to a halt not twenty feet from the front door and scrambled out, reaching into the back seat for her case and the long plastic bag that held her dresses.

Every muscle in her body ached. She felt like hell. And looked worse.

She ran for the front door. It was flanked by polished coachman’s lanterns and was painted a rich dark green. As she reached for the bell, the door swung open.

“Well,” a man’s voice said mockingly, “the late Miss Fraser.”

Devon tucked a stray blond curl into what had been, twenty-four hours ago, a sleek and well-mannered hairdo. “I’m Devon Fraser, yes,” she said. “Would you please direct me to my room? I’m in a hurry.”

The man was standing in the shadow of the door. Insolently he looked her up and down, from her windblown hair all the way to her dusty and unexciting pumps. “Very late,” he added.

Her brief assumption that this was a rather unconventional butler was just that: brief. The man blocking her entrance into the house had never in his life been the servant of others. No, he was the type who gave out the orders, and expected them, unless she was mistaken, to be instantly obeyed.

And then he stepped into the late-afternoon sunlight and for the first time she really saw him. Her eyes widened. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.

A butler? Was she crazy? He was the most magnificent specimen of manhood she’d ever seen.

Tall, dark and handsome didn’t begin to describe him.

Certainly he was tall, several inches taller than her five-feet-ten, a fact that instantly irritated her beyond all proportion. His hair was black, his eyes dark as volcanic rock, and for a moment, her imagination working overtime, she saw him as a man who would trail devastation in his wake and bring her only sorrow.

Oh, stop it, Devon! Dozens of men have black hair and dark eyes. Get a grip.