Ally Blake - Marriage Make-Over

Just as she’d feared—he looked movie-star gorgeous, and it took her breath away. Simon’s stylish black dinner suit and classic black tie radiated good taste and probably cost more than Kelly made in a month. He leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek and Kelly moved to accept it, catching a waft of expensive aftershave.

“You look beautiful, Kell,” Simon said, his subdued voice as disarming as his good looks.

“So do you.”

A soft smile touched his mouth. He was so beautiful. So elegant. So self-assured.

Who is this man? Kelly wondered as she tried to relate the sensations she was experiencing to those she’d felt so many years before. And found that she could not. This was different. This was adult. And this was fast spinning out of her control.

“How long have you been waiting?” he asked, his voice a caress in the dreamy darkness.

For you? For five long, lonely years.

“Not long,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

For better, for worse…these marriages were meant to last!

They’ve already said “I do,” but what happens when their promise to love, honor and cherish is put to the test?

Emotions run high as husbands and wives discover how precious—and fragile—their wedding vows are…but their love will keep them together—forever!

Ally Blake worked in retail, danced on television and acted in friends’ short films until the writing bug could no longer be ignored. And as her mother had read romance novels ever since Ally was a baby, the aspiration to write for Harlequin had been almost bred into her. Ally married her gorgeous husband, Mark, in Las Vegas (no Elvis in sight, thank you very much), and they live in beautiful Melbourne, Australia. Her husband cooks, he cleans and he’s the love of her life. How’s that for a hero?

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3782—THE WEDDING WISH

3802—MARRIAGE MATERIAL

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To Harry’s real life skipper, my little sister Suze, a girl

who can see the bright side of any situation and thus

makes life that much brighter for the rest of us.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

KELLYISM:

SO YOU WANT TO BE A ‘SINGLE AND LOVING IT!’ GIRL?

BE RESOLUTE. BE FEARLESS. BE HEARD!

‘KELLY ROCKFORD. Babe. You’re a hit!’

That was the kind of talk Kelly had heard only in her dreams. But there she was, sitting at Editor-in-Chief Maya Rampling’s desk at Fresh magazine, hearing those glorious words for real.

Maya’s talon-tipped finger tapped the draft of Kelly’s latest magazine column, which lay on her desk. ‘This is your best effort yet. Your column has really touched a nerve. Barely a month on and we are getting more mail for you than any other regular writer. As such I would like to offer you a freelance contract here at Fresh.’

Single and Loving It!, her pride and joy, her week-by-week column about how to be a happy single, was now her ticket out of writing bridal announcements and obituaries in the local rags! And she would be able to pay the rent on time. Her heart almost burst at the thought.

A dead-straight strand of cocoa-coloured fringe slipped from Kelly’s straining ponytail and swung before her eyes. She had to fight the urge to blow the offending lock away as, knowing her luck, she would blow a raspberry rather than the smooth, perfectly aimed puff of air she would prefer. And she wanted to remember herself in this perfect moment as the epitome of cool. Well, maybe not cool so much as not blowing a raspberry at an inopportune moment. She could hope for at least that much.

‘We will offer you a three-month contract,’ Maya continued in the face of Kelly’s strained silence. ‘Work at your own pace. Here or at home. Just as long as your copy is on my desk every Monday afternoon at five, and the work and the reader response stay on track, you will be a welcome and regular member of the Fresh family. Come on, I’ll show you to your work-station.’

Maya stood and led the way. In desperate relief Kelly raked her hand over her hair, tucking the fringe back in place. There. Cool Kelly held her ground.

And then she saw her work-station and had to choke back a gasp of splendiferous happiness. It was her very own tiny three-walled cubicle amongst a dozen other tiny three-walled cubicles. The desk was so sparse it reminded her of the first day of school when every new pencil was sharpened and no book was dog-eared or scratched. The work-station housed a corkboard, a filing cabinet, a phone, an assortment of stationery and a computer, which was turned on and opened to a fresh, hopeful Word file.

Kelly took off her faded denim jacket and fluffy pink scarf and hung them over the back of her very own bouncy office chair. She took a seat, swung back and forth and imagined dozens of happy snaps plastered over her corkboard, her ‘I Hate Working Wednesdays, They Really Cut Into My Weekends’ mug resting amidst a ring of stale coffee, and assorted funky knick-knacks balanced atop her monitor. Yep. This was her dream come true.

‘So how does that all sound?’ Maya asked.

As if the angels were singing her song!

‘Sounds fine, thanks,’ cool Kelly responded.

‘Great. First things first: your next column. You have touched on something very deep and given it a voice. So, of course, I want you to hit that vein deeper and deeper every week. Our female readers love you so, in my infinite wisdom, I have decided reader feedback will become a huge part of your page. We will start with a whammy. In amongst your legion of new fans, there was one reader who was not convinced.’

‘Just one?’ Good one, Kelly, real cool and confident!

Maya smiled indulgently, her sharp, preternaturally smooth face breaking into a zillion telling wrinkles at the unfamiliar movement. ‘One juicy one who made an interesting point. So maybe you could respond to this beauty in next week’s issue.’

Maya flicked a one-page letter onto Kelly’s desk as she left. ‘Have fun, and welcome to the Fresh family.’

Have fun? This was turning out to be the best day of her life! The best she cared to remember, anyway. She now had a real job doing something she utterly loved, her very own quasi-office with her very own bouncy chair, and lastly a real pay-packet, a regular pay-packet. How she wished she could have stapled her mother to the wall to have listened to everything Maya had said. Then her life would be perfect.