A Reason For Marriage

A Reason For Marriage
PENNY JORDAN

Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.It's been six years since Jamie walked in on her lover, Jake Brierton, in bed with another woman – and walked right back out that door and out of his life. But even though Jamie has spent years working on her successful decorating business, she's never been able to fully exorcise Jake from her mind. He is, after all, her stepbrother…When her stepdad becomes ill, Jamie is reunited with Jake on their way home for Christmas. She is shocked when Jake proposes marriage – a marriage designed to make their family happy.But when the ceremony is over, and their honeymoon in a cosy Swiss chalet begins, Jamie wonders what kind of marriage she's destined to have with the man who once broke her heart… and could easily do it again!

Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

A Reason for Marriage

Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘JAMIE, it’s great to have you here. We were so pleased that you could come. I hardly ever get to see you these days. You’re looking tired though, Uncle Mark says you work very hard.’

A brief smile curled Jamie’s lip-glossed mouth as her cousin mentioned her stepfather. She had been lucky there, she acknowledged mentally; more than lucky when she listened to other people’s stories of their parents’ second marriages.

Of course the fact that her own father had died before she was two probably had something to do with the fact that she had accepted Mark so readily; that and the fact that he had been as ready to love her as his daughter as she had him as her father.

‘He exaggerates, Beth,’ Jamie told her cousin, lifting her eyes from the second coat of lacquer she was applying to her nails.

Her cousin’s invitation to spend the weekend with her and her husband in their Bristol home had coincided with a gap in her work schedules. But now that she was here… She stifled the sense of unease that had been growing in her ever since her arrival just after lunch.

‘Tell me about my goddaughter,’ she instructed her cousin. ‘It’s been almost six months since I last saw her.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Beth challenged indignantly ‘We went to Queensmeade for Christmas. Why weren’t you there, Jamie? Your mother was bitterly disappointed.’

Guilt momentarily chased the warning coolness from her eyes as Jamie raised her head to look at her cousin.

‘Business, I’m afraid. I had hoped to be there, but I was offered a contract in New York I just couldn’t pass up.’

Listening to the sound of her own voice, distant and faintly aloof, Jamie had a momentary desire to break into hysterical laughter at the falsity of the image she was deliberately projecting, but she had hidden behind it for so long now that it was almost part of her.

There wasn’t one member of the family now who didn’t look at her and see the successful polished businesswoman she had made herself become. Glancing down at her long lacquered nails, she checked a faint sigh as she looked back to the tomboy she had once been, running wild in the large grounds of Queensmeade. But it was over ten years now since she had been that girl, and between her and the woman she now was there was a chasm that nothing could bridge—and that was the way she wanted it.

‘You can become re-acquainted with my daughter tomorrow,’ Beth told her firmly, refusing to be sidetracked. ‘I want to hear about you. Uncle Mark is terribly proud of you, Jamie; more proud than he is of Jake, I sometimes think. I read that article about you in Homes and Gardens the other week, the photographs of the rooms you’d done were fantastic.’

The feature in question had been a good one and had resulted in a small avalanche of extra business for her small decorating business, Jamie reflected.

The old paint finishes and manner of decorating were becoming more and more popular, and she had never been sorry that she had decided to switch from the more traditional interior-designer career she had planned for herself to what she considered the exciting challenge of learning and improving on the traditional techniques of marbling, graining, dragging and all the other styles of paint decor which were now so fashionable.

‘Whilst you’re here I think I shall have to pick your brains about this place,’ Beth continued wryly. ‘We were full of plans when we moved in, but Richard’s been so busy that we haven’t been able to do so much as buy a roll of wallpaper.’

Richard, Beth’s solidly placid husband, had recently decided to break from his company and set up in business on his own, and knowing the problems that could be involved Jamie could well understand that decorating would be the last item on his list of priorities.

‘We’ll go through the house together tomorrow,’ she promised her cousin, smiling when she saw her pleased expression.

‘I envy you,’ the younger girl said with a faint sigh. ‘You always look so glamorous.’

Shrugging fine-boned shoulders Jamie told her carelessly, ‘It’s just a façade, Beth, that’s all; a necessary part of my business to project a glossy, expensive image, but I haven’t changed, you know.’

Lifting blue eyes to her cousin’s darker, almost violet ones, Beth said seriously,

‘No, I know you haven’t, Jamie. It’s a long time since you’ve been to Queensmeade, isn’t it?’

Catching the faint note of censure in her cousin’s voice, Jamie carefully blanked out every emotion from her voice.

‘The Yorkshire Dales are a long way from London.’ She saw the faint flicker of something in Beth’s eyes, and suddenly alarm clutched her heart-muscles. ‘What is it, Beth?’ she demanded huskily. ‘Is something wrong at home? My mother, Mark?’

When had she started calling her stepfather Mark? To strangers it might seem that she used his Christian name to hold him at a distance, to differentiate between her stepfather and her natural father, but that wasn’t the case. She had picked the habit up from Jake of course, probably almost before she realised what she was doing.

Jake had been her god in those days; a magnificent and awe-inspiring creature whom she was privileged to call ‘brother’…her mouth twisted a little bitterly. It seemed incredible that she had ever been that naïve.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Beth told her guiltily. ‘It’s Mark, Jamie. He’s been suffering from chest pains for some time and the doctor’s diagnosed a heart condition—at the moment it’s not too serious, but he’s been told he has to take things more easily—not to worry so much. Your mother’s persuading him to retire, to hand control of the company over completely to Jake.’

It was no use pretending that it did not hurt to receive this information second-hand from her cousin, but she had no one to blame for that pain other than herself. She was, after all, the one who had deliberately distanced herself from her home, who had intentionally set out to carve herself a career that would take her as far away as possible. But she rang home regularly to speak to her mother.

‘Your mother didn’t want to worry you,’ Beth told her sympathetically, seeing the pain in her eyes. ‘She knows how close you are to Uncle Mark.’

‘Umm. I don’t know how on earth she’s going to get him to slow down.’

Beth’s expression lightened. ‘Jake said exactly the same thing. Funny how the two of you invariably come up with the same reactions at the same time, and yet put you together and you can’t agree on a single thing. I remember at our wedding, I thought you were about to come to blows.’

Jamie looked away from her, studying her nails thoughtfully before reaching for the lacquer bottle to apply a final coat.

‘Yes,’ she said carefully, her attention all for her nails, ‘It’s always been like that.’

‘No, it hasn’t.’

Her heart lurched at the quiet challenge in Beth’s voice.

‘Why don’t the two of you get on any more, Jamie?’ Beth pressed. ‘It hurts your mother and Uncle Mark dreadfully. They both love both of you so much. Whenever there’s a family gathering it’s noticeable that either you or Jake will be there—but never both of you. It’s almost as though it’s pre-planned.’

‘Well, it isn’t,’ Jamie told her harshly, apologising with a wry smile when she saw her cousin’s faintly hurt expression. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit on edge. I hate flying, especially across the Atlantic. I think I’m still suffering from jet-lag.’