Jessica Hart - Marriage Reunited

A bet. The very word brought back a rush of memories. Their marriage had had an undercurrent of competition that had kept their relationship sparking, because no matter how frivolous, tender or erotic the challenge, the truth was that neither of them had ever liked to lose.

“So what’s the bet this time?” Georgia asked as coolly as she could.

“I bet I can convince you that I love you and can be what you need,” said Mac. “And, what’s more, I bet I can make you realize that you still love me.”

Georgia laughed. “Well, I bet you can’t!”

“If I win, you tear up those papers and we stay married. If you win…” Mac shrugged. “I’ll sign and the divorce will go straight through.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous! We can’t possibly make a bet like that!”

“Chicken?” said Mac provocatively.

Georgia glared at him. “Is there a time limit on this bet? I don’t want to be hanging on indefinitely.”

“Why don’t we say three months?” suggested Mac.

Three months. She could easily hold out that long.

“All right.” Georgia met his gaze squarely, her own bright with challenge. “You’re on.”

Vibrant, fresh and cosmopolitan, Jessica Hart creates stories bursting with emotional warmth and sparkling romance!

Did you know that Jessica Hart won the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award in July 2005 for her Harlequin Romance® novel

Christmas Eve Marriage!

About Christmas Eve Marriage

“Jessica Hart makes this classic plot work like a charm and all her characters are wonderful!”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

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Jessica Hart was born in west Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since—traveling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration to draw from when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, U.K., where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons. If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her Web site www.jessicahart.co.uk

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3820—CHRISTMAS EVE MARRIAGE

3844—HERE COMES THE BRIDE*

3861—CONTRACTED: CORPORATE WIFE

3869—MISTLETOE MARRIAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

‘THANK YOU for coming in. I’ll be in touch.’ Georgia closed the door firmly behind the latest applicant for the post of senior photographer on the Askerby and District Gazette and let the bright, polite smile drop from her face.

Mentally she began to compose a letter for Rose to type up and send to all five of the hopefuls who had responded to the advertisement.

Dear X, Thank you so much for coming in and wasting my time today. While admiring your nerve in applying for a job for which you have no experience and absolutely no talent, I am afraid that I am unable to offer you the post. I am desperate for a photographer, but not that desperate. Yours sincerely, Georgia Maitland, Editor.

What a shame you couldn’t tell it how it was, instead of wrapping it in meaningless phrases, thought Georgia, already resigned to drafting a letter that would make her sound kind and encouraging instead of cross and impatient, which was how she really felt.

As if she didn’t have enough to do.

Taking off her glasses, she dropped them on to her desk and threw herself into the battered executive chair with a gusty sigh, spinning round to face the window behind. The view over the rooftops of the town to the hills beyond was one of the few bonuses of the Gazette’s location on the third floor of a bleak Victorian warehouse which had been badly converted in the Seventies.

On this March afternoon, a weak winter sun was struggling to stay above the horizon and the hills, still dusted with snow from a cold snap earlier in the week, were reflecting a pinkish glow. It would make a nice picture, thought Georgia morosely.

If only she could find a photographer capable of taking it.

Behind her, she heard the door to her office open. This would be Rose, still struggling to learn the ropes as the Gazette’s secretary, and almost as anxious as Georgia to find a new photographer. She would be wanting to know how the last interview had gone.

‘He seems terribly nice,’ she had whispered to Georgia confidentially before ushering the last candidate in.

Nice he might have been, a talented photographer he most certainly wasn’t.

‘Please tell me that guy wasn’t the best photographer Askerby can come up with,’ Georgia said without turning round.

‘I could tell you that if you want, but then I’d be lying, and you know I’ve never lied to you, Georgia.’

The voice that answered her was far from her secretary’s cut-glass tones. Instead it was warm and amused, with a Scottish lilt that was more a softening of the hard edges than a full-blown accent.

It was a voice Georgia hadn’t heard for four long years. A voice so unexpected and so bizarrely out of place in her dull provincial office that she froze for a moment, certain that she must be imagining things.

Then, very, very slowly, she swivelled her chair round to face her husband.

‘Hello, Georgia,’ he said.

Georgia’s heart, which had lurched into her throat at the sound of his voice, did a series of spectacular somersaults before landing with a sickening thud that left her reeling and breathless.

Mac Henderson, the love of her life. The man she had married. The man who had broken her heart.

The first instinctive surge of joy at the sight of him was rapidly succeeded, much to Georgia’s relief, by a welcome rush of therapeutic anger. It was typical of Mac to turn up when she was least expecting him!

Just when she had managed to convince herself that she was over him.

How dared he come here looking just the same, with the same heart-shaking smile and the same unsettling humour gleaming in his navy-blue eyes, making her senses pirouette and her bones dissolve exactly the same way they always had?

It wasn’t fair.

Georgia took a deep breath and wished she could remember some of those calming yoga exercises she had once tried.

‘Mac,’ she said, hating the way shock had made her voice husky, although, to be fair, it was a miracle she was able to speak at all given the way her heart was carrying on, cavorting around her ribcage like a red setter out of control. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you.’

Mac looked as if he would have liked to have strolled around, but her office simply wasn’t big enough for him to do more than take a couple of steps in any direction.