âA wife would be very useful to me.â
Quinn continued. âDinner parties, entertainingâit is all so much easier with a hostess. I would make sure you donât lose out on the deal.â
âQuinn!â Candy interrupted him before he could say any more. âQuinn, we donât love each other.â Or you donât love me, more to the point. âIt wouldnât work, you must know that,â she said with deliberate casualness.
âOn the contrary, I think it would work very well. Marriages of convenience are far more successful than so-called love matches.â
âSo thatâs what this is, a convenient proposal?â Candy asked flatly.
âI guess.â His eyes narrowed and he drew her closer. âBut I would satisfy you, Candy, in every way. Have no doubts about that.â
Dear Reader,
My husband and I will celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary in the new millennium and weâre planning something special! It set me to thinking about the day my husband proposed (yes, it was the full worksâbended knee, little velvet box holding the ring of my dreams, deep red roses and champagne, the lot!).
Like people, proposals come in all shapes and sizes, which is what makes themâand usâso interesting. Halfway up a mountainside in a blizzard, on a beautiful Caribbean beach, stuck in a broken-down train in the middle of nowhere⦠Iâve heard the lot from friends and family over the years.
So, I thought, why not write a special duet of books exploring the motives behind two very specialâand very differentâproposals in one family? And thatâs how the idea for MARRY ME? was born: two books on one extremely romantic theme. I do hope you enjoyed A Suspicious Proposal last month, and now the sequel, A Convenient Proposal.
Lots of love,
Helen Brooks
CANDY stared at her reflection in the small round mirror in the aeroplaneâs toilet, and it was with something of a sense of shock that she took in the image peering back at her.
Thick, silky hair of a glowing russet-red hanging in soft waves to slender shoulders, vivid sapphire-blue eyes under finely arched brows, clear, creamy skin dotted with the merest sprinkling of freckles across a small straight nose⦠It looked like her, admittedly, she thought numbly, and yet how could the pain and frightening bitterness of the last months not show on the face of the girl who gazed back at her?
But she had always been good at hiding her real feelings. The thought brought her small chin up in unconscious defiance of the voice inside her head telling her she couldnât do this, that she should have stayed in Canada where everything was safe and normal, that she wasnât strong enough yet to strike out on her own.
âYou are a survivor, Candy Grey.â She brushed back the wispy fringe from her forehead as she spoke out loud, and on realising her hands were trembling she clenched them into fists at her side. âYou are.â The azure gaze became a glare that dared her to contradict it. âAnd you are going to make it.â
The future might not be what she had imagined for herself this time a year ago, but so what? The narrowed eyes with their abundantly thick lashes were unflinching. She could either wallow in self-pity, and eventually let it drown her, or she could make a new life for herselfâa life where she called all the shots and where she was answerable to no one. Life on her own terms. She nodded at the declaration, her slim shoulders straightening.
Once back in her comfortable seat in the first-class section of the plane, she ignored the none too subtle overtures from the man in the next seat, who had proved a pain for the whole of the journey from Vancouver, and endeavoured to prepare herself for the landing at Heathrow. Then, once she had battled her way through the terminal, she could pick up the car one of Xavierâs business colleagues had arranged to have waiting for her arrival and, bingo, she was on her way, she told herself firmly. And so it proved.
Within a short time of the plane landing she was ensconced in a little blue Fiesta, her luggage filling the boot and back seat and spilling over on to the passenger seat at the side of her.
It took her several attempts to navigate her way out of London but she didnât panic. After the bottomless abyss of the last months what was getting lost in the overall scheme of things? Candy asked herself caustically on eventually finding herself in the outskirts. If nothing else she had learnt what was important and what was not.
Autonomy was important. Being able to choose what she wanted to do and when she wanted to do it. She flexed her long slim legs at the memory of her endless months in the wheelchair and drew in the air very slowly between her small white teeth. She might still get exhausted very quickly, and the self-physiotherapy the doctor had taught her would have to continue for some months yet, but she was mistress of her own destiny again.