Rebecca Winters: To Marry For Duty

By the time she reached home, Piper Duchess had made up her mind. She would throw herself into work. She would become a millionaire before she was thirty.

That would prove to Nic de Pastrana that she didn’t need him.

But that was before Nic turned up on her doorstep—needing her help….

THE HUSBAND FUND trilogy

by Rebecca Winters

Only in Harlequin Romance ®!

Book 1—To Catch a Groom (#3819)

Book 2—To Win His Heart (#3827)

Book 3—To Marry for Duty (#3835)

Dear Reader,

I came from a family of five sisters and one brother. The four oldest girls were my parents’ first family. There was a space before my baby sister and baby brother came along.

My mother called the first four her little women, and gave each of us a Madame Alexander doll from the Little Women series based on the famous book by Louisa May Alcott. We may not have been quadruplets, but we were close in age and definitely felt a connection to each other that often meant we tuned into each others’ thoughts as we sang, played, studied and traveled together.

In our early twenties I recall a time when I took the train from Paris, France, where I’d been studying, to meet one of my sisters at the port in Genoa, Italy, where her ship came in from New York. She was returning to school in Perugia, Italy. Some of my choicest memories are our glorious adventures as two blond American sisters on vacation along the French and Italian rivieras, dodging Mediterranean playboys.

When I conceived The Husband Fund trilogy for Harlequin Romance ®, I have no doubt the idea of triplet sisters coming to Europe on a lark to intentionally meet some gorgeous Riviera playboys sprang to life from my own family experiences at home and abroad.

Meet Greer, Olivia and Piper, three characters drawn from my imagination who probably have traits from all four of my wonderful, intelligent, talented sisters in their makeup.

Enjoy!

Rebecca Winters

www.rebeccawinters-author.com

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

August

Kingston, New York

“THANKS for seeing me on such short notice, Dr. Arnavitz. I’ve never been to a psychiatrist before, so I’m nervous.”

He cocked his gray head. “Nervousness on the part of my patients seems to go with the territory. At least on a first visit. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you and we’ll start there.”

Piper Duchess sat on the edge of the chair with her hands rigidly clasped on top of her knees. “Everything’s bothering me—” she blurted before hot tears rolled down her flushed cheeks.

Without saying anything the doctor pushed a box of tissues toward her. She took one and wiped the moisture from her face. When she’d regained a little composure, she said, “For the first time in my life, I’m really alone, and I’m not handling it very well. To be honest, I’m not handling it at all—” She broke down again.

“Do you mean emotionally, physically?”

“Both.” She blotted her aqua eyes with another tissue.

“From your chart I see that you’re twenty-seven years old and single. Are you going through a breakup with a boyfriend or fiancé?”

No.

Nic didn’t qualify for either category and anyway he wasn’t interested in her. In fact Nicolas de Pastrana of the House of Parma-Bourbon in Spain had always been off limits to her though she hadn’t known that when she’d first met him and his cousins. “No,” her voice trembled, “but I would imagine this is exactly how it must feel. No wonder it’s such a traumatic experience.”

“Tell me about your family.”

“My parents have both passed away. My sisters Greer and Olivia are now married and live in Europe. Olivia just got married in Marbella. I flew home from Spain to New York three days ago.”

“You live alone?”

She nodded. “In a basement apartment here in Kingston. The three of us shared it after Daddy died in the spring.”

“You have no extended family?”

“No. Our parents were both older when they married and their families have all passed on.”

“So you’re virtually alone now.”

Her throat started to close up with pain. “Yes. I sound like a big baby, don’t I?”

“Not at all. Most people have some relatives living in the same country at least. Where do you fit in your family constellation?”

Piper thought she understood what he meant. “I’m the middle child, but that may sound misleading since my sisters and I are nonidentical triplets.”

“Ah…” That was all he said, but apparently it answered some questions for him.

“I’ve never been completely alone like this before. I’m not talking just the physical separation from my sisters. It’s a mental thing.”

“The reign of the Three Musketeers has come to an end?” he supplied.

“Yes!” she cried. “It’s exactly like that. All for one, one for all. Now they have husbands and nothing will ever be the same again.”

“Are you angry about that?”

Her head was bowed. “Yes. I know that’s an awful thing to say.”

“You’re wrong. It’s the honest thing to say. If you’d said anything else, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“It’s my fault they’re married, so I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.”

“You mean you held a gun to their husbands’ heads when they proposed to your sisters?”

She laughed in spite of her tears. If only he knew the extent of the machinations involved. “No.”

“So how could their marriages be your fault?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have twenty more minutes.”

Meaning she’d better get to the point fast. “Greer’s the oldest. She always told Olivia and me what to do. She was the one who talked us into starting our Internet business after college. It was her plan that we become millionaires by the time we were thirty, so she said none of us could get married or it would spoil everything.

“Olivia and I didn’t care about becoming millionaires and figured we needed to get her married off first so we could meet a man and settle down to be happy like our parents.

“Dad worried about Greer’s attitude too. Before he died, Olivia and I came up with a plan for him to leave any money to us in a special fund we called the Husband Fund.

“The one legal stipulation was that we could only use the money to find a husband, and for no other reason. Of course Daddy, who approved of the idea wholeheartedly, didn’t let on to Greer that we were behind it.