Vivian Leiber - The Bewildered Wife

Cover Page

Excerpt “Why do you have this silly idea I’m a nanny?” Susan asked dismally. “It’s not silly,” Dean said at last. “I’m being perfectly rational.” “You’re always very rational. But, in this case, you’re also being silly.” “But I’m not! Susan, think carefully. Do you remember being my wife? Do you remember anything at all?” “I don’t remember much of anything because my head feels pretty muddled,” she said defiantly. “But the doctor said that’s perfectly understandable. It will all come back.” “Susan, what do you remember about our marriage, about us?” “I remember a lot, a lot that a nanny wouldn’t remember. Intimate things. Bedroom things. You and me things. Not just nanny things. You take me upstairs to that bedroom and I’ll prove to you once and for all that I’m your wife. I’ll prove to you that I remember the most important things about being your wife…”

Dear Reader Dear Reader , This July, Silhouette Romance cordially invites you to a month of marriage stories, based upon your favorite themes. There’s no need to RSVP; just pick up a book, start reading…and be swept away by romance. The month kicks off with our Fabulous Fathers title, And Baby Makes Six, by talented author Pamela Dalton. Two single parents marry for convenience’ sake, only to be surprised to learn they’re expecting a baby of their own! In Natalie Patrick’s Three Kids and a Cowboy, a woman agrees to stay married to her husband just until he adopts three adorable orphans, but soon finds herself longing to make the arrangement permanent. And the romance continues when a beautiful wedding consultant asks her sexy neighbor to pose as her fiancé in Just Say I Do by RITA Award-winning author Lauryn Chandler. The reasons for weddings keep coming, with a warmly humorous story of amnesia in Vivian Leiber’s The Bewildered Wife; a new take on the runaway bride theme in Have Honeymoon, Need Husband by Robin Wells; and a green card wedding from debut author Elizabeth Harbison in A Groom for Maggie. Here’s to your reading enjoyment! Melissa Senate Senior Editor Silhouette Romance Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Title Page The Bewildered Wife Vivian Leiber www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication For my husband, who taught me that lightning really does strike twice.

About the Author VIVIAN LEIBER’s writing talent runs in the family. Her great-grandmother wrote a popular collection of Civil War-era poetry, her grandfather Fritz was an award-winning science-fiction writer and her father still writes science fiction and fantasy today. Vivian hopes that her two sons follow the family tradition, but so far the five-year-old’s ambition is to be a construction worker and own a toy store, while her other boy wants to be a truck driver.

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

Copyright

Susan asked dismally.

“It’s not silly,” Dean said at last. “I’m being perfectly rational.”

“You’re always very rational. But, in this case, you’re also being silly.”

“But I’m not! Susan, think carefully. Do you remember being my wife? Do you remember anything at all?”

“I don’t remember much of anything because my head feels pretty muddled,” she said defiantly. “But the doctor said that’s perfectly understandable. It will all come back.”

“Susan, what do you remember about our marriage, about us?”

“I remember a lot, a lot that a nanny wouldn’t remember. Intimate things. Bedroom things. You and me things. Not just nanny things. You take me upstairs to that bedroom and I’ll prove to you once and for all that I’m your wife. I’ll prove to you that I remember the most important things about being your wife…”

Dear Reader,

This July, Silhouette Romance cordially invites you to a month of marriage stories, based upon your favorite themes. There’s no need to RSVP; just pick up a book, start reading…and be swept away by romance.

The month kicks off with our Fabulous Fathers title, And Baby Makes Six, by talented author Pamela Dalton. Two single parents marry for convenience’ sake, only to be surprised to learn they’re expecting a baby of their own!

In Natalie Patrick’s Three Kids and a Cowboy, a woman agrees to stay married to her husband just until he adopts three adorable orphans, but soon finds herself longing to make the arrangement permanent. And the romance continues when a beautiful wedding consultant asks her sexy neighbor to pose as her fiancé in Just Say I Do by RITA Award-winning author Lauryn Chandler.

The reasons for weddings keep coming, with a warmly humorous story of amnesia in Vivian Leiber’s The Bewildered Wife; a new take on the runaway bride theme in Have Honeymoon, Need Husband by Robin Wells; and a green card wedding from debut author Elizabeth Harbison in A Groom for Maggie.

Here’s to your reading enjoyment!

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my husband, who taught me that lightning really

does strike twice.

writing talent runs in the family. Her great-grandmother wrote a popular collection of Civil War-era poetry, her grandfather Fritz was an award-winning science-fiction writer and her father still writes science fiction and fantasy today. Vivian hopes that her two sons follow the family tradition, but so far the five-year-old’s ambition is to be a construction worker and own a toy store, while her other boy wants to be a truck driver.

“Susan, make a wish,” Chelsea begged.

Susan looked around the dining room table. Chelsea, Henry and Baby Edward’s faces were lit by excitement and by the twelve candles on a chocolate cake—Chelsea had run out of both candles and patience long before she could spear the cake with all twenty-seven.

“Come on, make a wish,” Henry demanded. He was dressed in Batman pajama bottoms, but had decided to wrap the matching top around his head like a turban. A tube that had been used to mail architectural drawings to his father was shoved into his waistband—ready to draw, to strike, at the first sign of trouble.

Susan took a deep breath.

I wish…I wish all this were mine, she thought.

And then immediately chastised herself.

It wasn’t hers, could never be hers, and it was very selfish to want it.

But it wasn’t the Radcliffe mansion, the fortyacre grounds, the luxury cars or the Radcliffe collection of late-nineteenth-century American painters she longed for. She didn’t pine for the jewels locked away in a safe behind a panel in the upstairs library. She wouldn’t even want the heavy Queen Anne furniture, the soft Aubusson rugs or the ornate silver flatware that lay dusty and tarnished in the beveled-glass cabinets of the butler’s pantry.