Nicola Marsh - Contract To Marry

From city girl—to corporate wife!

Working side by side, nine to five and beyond…. No matter how hard these couples try to keep their relationships strictly professional, romance is definitely on the agenda!

But will a date in the office diary lead to an appointment at the altar?

Find out in this exciting miniseries from Harlequin Romance ®.

Fleur smiled. “I’ve been here a few times.”

“So what do you do, apart from that?” he asked, pointing toward the dance floor packed with writhing bodies, and grimacing.

“Have you ever tried that?” she asked provocatively.

He took the bait. “No, but how hard can it be? Let’s go.” He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the dance floor.

“Now, this is fun,” he said as he gyrated in time with the music, his body pressed against hers, making her wish the barrier of their clothing would suddenly disappear, leaving them in an intimate embrace of skin on skin.

She pulled away. “End of lesson number one,” she yelled above the music.

“What does lesson two entail?” he asked.

“Maybe it’s best if we save the next lesson till tomorrow?”

“Don’t be boring,” he whispered wickedly, a split second before he slanted his lips across hers.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Nicola Marsh says, “As a girl, I dreamed of being a journalist and traveling the world in search of the next big story. Luckily, I have had the opportunity to travel the world, but my dream to write has never been far from my mind. When I met my own tall, dark and handsome hero, and learned that romance is everything it’s cracked up to be, I finally took the plunge and put pen to paper. I live in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne with my husband and baby son. When I’m not writing I work as a physiotherapist for a vocational rehabilitation company, helping people with disabilities return to the workforce. I also love sharing fine food and wine with friends and family, going to the movies and—my favorite—curling up in front of the fire with a good book.”

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

EPILOGUE

FLEUR ADAMS rushed into the café, trying to juggle a portfolio, laptop, umbrella and handbag while shaking raindrops from her curly hair and cursing the fickle Melbourne weather, a lousy public-transport system and men, in that order.

‘Hey, pretty lady. The usual?’ Billy winked at her from behind the counter and gave her an appreciative once-over, typical of his meet-and-greet routine with the female customers.

She smiled in gratitude as the aroma of steaming coffee and freshly baked muffins infused her senses. ‘You’re a lifesaver. Oh, and make mine a double today. I need it.’

‘Too much caffeine will get you all hyped up. So if you need to burn off any extra energy…’

‘I’ll join a gym!’

Billy’s innuendoes had initially rankled when she’d first found the coffee shop though she’d soon realised he was harmless. Besides, he made the best lattes and choc-chip muffins in Melbourne, two major reasons to tolerate his light-hearted flirtation.

‘Oh, well, can’t blame a guy for trying.’ He shrugged and turned to the espresso machine. ‘By the way, Liv’s arrived.’

‘Thanks.’ She scanned the growing lunch crowd and spotted her friend at a corner table, nose buried in the latest romance novel as usual.

Taking care not to decapitate anyone on the way to their table, Fleur slid into a vacant seat and stacked her load against a nearby wall. ‘Let me guess. The tall, dark and handsome hero is about to rip off the heroine’s bodice and thrust his—’

‘No! Romance novels aren’t bodice-rippers. They’re contemporary fiction. How many times have I told you that?’ Liv stared at Fleur over her rimless spectacles, a faint blush staining her cheeks.

Fleur grinned. ‘All those books seem the same to me. Lots of hot action, with the main protagonist being men with broad, naked chests and big—’

‘OK, you’ve made your point.’ Liv snapped the book shut and held up her hand to silence her. ‘Enough of your literary critiquing. How did the presentation go?’

Fleur’s grin faded as the memory of yet another failure flooded back. ‘Don’t ask,’ she muttered, as a waitress placed a giant glass and a muffin in front of her.

‘That good, huh?’

‘Worse.’ Fleur sipped at the latte and savoured the caffeine rush, wishing she’d never quit her reliable, reasonably paid job to chase a dream. A dream that would shortly turn into a nightmare if she didn’t acquire some new business—and soon.

‘No takers for an accountant-cum-life coach destined to revamp businesses and take them into the twenty-first century, huh?’

Fleur shook her head. ‘Not one. Seems like the terms “emotional intelligence” and “compliant oriented teaming” are just too modern for the average CEO. Though one of the senior execs I met this morning did give me a card and encouraged me to call, though I doubt he was interested in anything to do with emotions or intelligence, the way he kept looking at my legs.’

‘Yeuk! Sexist pig.’

‘He wasn’t all that awful, actually…’

Liv’s eyes widened. ‘Now I know you’re in a bad way, letting a lech like that get away with it.’

Fleur sighed. ‘I’m just tired of doing the promotional bit and having nothing to show for it.’ She bit into her muffin, wondering if she’d literally bitten off more than she could chew with her latest proposal.

She’d approached countless companies, many through contacts she’d gained as an accountant, to pitch her idea to them. After completing a part-time degree in psychology, which she’d initially undertaken to break out of the conservative-accountant-stereotype mould, she’d come up with the brilliant concept to change the outlook of most companies, with the hope that improved job satisfaction would lead to increased profit margins. Some of her initial contacts had received the idea warmly; that was, until they actually had to commit money to the project and hire her.

Liv leaned forward. ‘Show me the promotional material you’ve been using. Maybe I can help.’

‘The way things are running at the moment, I need all the help I can get.’ Fleur unzipped her portfolio and grabbed a wad of paperwork. However, as she straightened, her head bumped an elbow and the person it belonged to stumbled against her, sending papers flying in all directions.

‘Dammit!’ a deep voice muttered somewhere in the vicinity of her ear as she bent to pick up the scattered material. ‘Here, let me do that.’

Fleur rubbed her head and straightened up, wishing the stranger had bumped her harder. That way, she could have lost consciousness and woken up hours later, when this all-round dreadful day would be over.

‘Leave it!’ she snapped, looking up at the clumsy oaf who had managed to worsen her mood, if that was possible.

‘Mmm…interesting.’ Surprisingly, the oaf wasn’t staring at her as she’d half expected. After all, she knew that many men found her attractive, though for the life of her she still hadn’t figured out why. Shoulder-length brown curly hair, brown eyes, passable figure, average height—all in all, it didn’t seem like much of a package to her but she worked it to her advantage most of the time.