Miranda Lee - A Weekend To Remember

Cover

Excerpt “You won’t corrupt me…” Hannah shuddered. Maybe she wouldn’t corrupt him, but being with Jack might well corrupt her. Once again she’d failed to tell him the truth, and she knew the reason why. She wanted him to go on wanting her, wanted him to keep looking at her as he just had, wanted to wallow a while longer in his admiration and desire. It was wicked of her. And downright dangerous.

Dear Reader Dear Reader, Love can be full of surprises! This is the second book in Miranda Lee’s bewitching trilogy Affairs to Remember. The popular Australian author has written three complete stories of love affairs with a difference—in all the tales there are twists that you won’t forget. This month, Hannah tells a little white lie and pretends that she’s Jack Marshall’s fiancee; Jack seems quite happy to play along—but what will happen when he recovers his memory? The Editor

Title Page A Weekend To Remember Miranda Lee www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

Hannah shuddered. Maybe she wouldn’t corrupt him, but being with Jack might well corrupt her. Once again she’d failed to tell him the truth, and she knew the reason why. She wanted him to go on wanting her, wanted him to keep looking at her as he just had, wanted to wallow a while longer in his admiration and desire.

It was wicked of her.

And downright dangerous.

Dear Reader,

Love can be full of surprises!

This is the second book in Miranda Lee’s bewitching trilogy Affairs to Remember. The popular Australian author has written three complete stories of love affairs with a difference—in all the tales there are twists that you won’t forget.

This month, Hannah tells a little white lie and pretends that she’s Jack Marshall’s fiancee; Jack seems quite happy to play along—but what will happen when he recovers his memory?

The Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A LIGHT drizzle started falling soon after the road began its long winding route up the Blue Mountains. Hannah flicked on the windscreen wipers and glanced over at her passenger.

He was still sleeping, thank heavens. The drive from Sydney up to the cottage was difficult enough at the best of times. On a Friday evening, in the dark and in the rain, it was downright dangerous.

Her hands tightened on the steering-wheel, her stomach muscles following suit. What in hell was she doing? Common sense told her to turn round and go back, take Jack home, confess all and throw herself on his mercy.

I’m terribly, terribly sorry, she could hear herself saying. I don’t know what came over me, but of course I’m not your fiancee. Just a very worried secretary who simply couldn’t let that cold-hearted ambitious bitch take you for another ride. When that tile fell on your head this morning and you lost the last six weeks from your memory—including your whirlwind romance—I thought at first that might be the end of Felicia. But then a nurse at the hospital said a fiancee had been mentioned and would I please call her. In my mind’s eye I saw Felicia swanning in and winning you all over again with her looks and her lies, so before I knew it I’d opened my stupid mouth and said I was your fiancee.

Hannah’s heart almost jumped into her mouth when Jack shifted in his seat and muttered something under his breath. She sighed with relief when he settled back again, his head lolling to one side, his eyes still shut.

God, for a second there, she thought she’d been speaking out loud instead of in her head. As much as common sense kept ringing warning bells over her reckless deception, no way was she going to heed them.

She didn’t care if she lost her job over this.

And she probably would.

Hannah was determined that till Jack got his memory back—the doctor had said that that could happen at any time during the next few days—the only person with him would be herself. She was determined to keep that two-timing witch out of the picture till she could tell Jack the whole appalling truth about the woman he’d been going to marry at the end of the month.

As it stood, dear Felicia was probably at this very moment fuming over the fax from Jack saying that he was having second thoughts about their engagement, and that he was going away for a few days to think things over. The fax also added that she was not to try to contact him, and that he would contact her when he returned.

Any guilt Hannah felt over doing such an outrageous thing, including forging Jack’s name, was cancelled when she thought of what she had discovered last night. That woman deserved no consideration. None at all.

Hannah shuddered to think how close she had come to not going to Jack’s engagement party and finding out the truth. She’d arrived home from work yesterday to be greeted by her final divorce papers in the mail, which hadn’t exactly put her in the mood for partying. She’d literally had to force herself to dress, then drive down to Kirribilli, where the party was being held in a fancy high-rise unit overlooking the harbour, courtesy of a property developer friend of Jack’s.

Even before knowing what she knew now, Hannah had harboured misgivings about Jack’s choice of bride. She’d only met Felicia a couple of times in a very casual way at the office, but she had just known the woman wasn’t right for Jack.

It wasn’t jealousy on her part. Hannah had only been Jack’s secretary for a little over a year, and there was nothing between them but a strictly work-related relationship. Her feelings for Jack Marshall stopped firmly at liking, respect and gratitude. Oh, yes.. .she was grateful to him. Very grateful.

When she’d applied for the job as private secretary to the boss of Marshall Homes, Hannah had honestly thought she hadn’t stood a chance. Good Lord, it had been years since she had used her secretarial skills outside of the home.

But it seemed that Jack had been looking for someone mature, who could be relied on, not some flighty young flibbertigibbet—his word, not hers—who would leave either to go overseas, get married or have babies. She’d assured him she would do none of those things, since she hated travel, had already been married one time too many, and had had babies—two boys, now thirteen and fourteen, both in boarding-school.

Hannah had been so proud of herself when Jack had rung the next day to tell her she had the job.

Pride was something she’d been deficient in for quite some time, and in gratitude for the chance he’d given her Hannah gave him absolute loyalty in return. In her eyes, Jack could do no wrong. He deserved the best, in her opinion, and the best was not a two-faced two-bit soapie-star by the unlikely name of Felicia Fay.

Hannah’s top lip curled in contempt at the mere thought of the woman.

Really, she was beneath contempt—the worst excuse for a woman Hannah had ever met. She’d begun to suspect as much the moment Jack’s fiancee had opened the apartment door to her the previous evening…

‘Well, if it isn’t the efficient Hannah, running late for once. Whatever will Jack say!’