A Wife for One Year
Marriage AgreementBetween Daniel Garrett and Kenna ScottStay married one yearFool the familyNo sex!To claim his trust fund and launch a new career, Daniel needs to be married…and no one can tick all the "wifely" boxes like Kenna. And since she's his best friend, the celibacy part should be a piece of (wedding) cake! Or so Daniel thinks…until he hears the words that make him freeze: "You may kiss your bride." One official kiss has the former confirmed bachelor reeling…and one unplanned night with his virgin bride has him staggering. Will it be the end of an era for the two best friends, or will a surprise pregnancy make the two become three–for keeps?
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He stared at the tiny scrap of lingerie in his hand …
… and pictured Kenna wearing nothing more than the soft lace—an image that was arousing and unnerving.
Daniel was intimately acquainted with women’s lingerie. He knew the difference between a G-string and a thong, appreciated the effect of a push-up bra.
He wouldn’t mind seeing what Kenna looked like in one … and then out of it.
“Stay out of my underwear drawer.”
He looked at Kenna and grinned. “I never gave much thought to getting into it … until a moment ago.”
“Well, stop. Just because I’m your wife doesn’t mean I’m going to get naked with you. You set the terms,” she reminded him. “A one-year marriage on paper only.”
Obviously not a well thought-out plan, he realized.
“What if I want to renegotiate?” he asked.
“Not going to happen.”
He took a step closer, deliberately invading her personal space. “You know I can’t resist a challenge.”
* * *
Those Engaging Garretts! The Carolina Cousins
BRENDA HARLEN is a former family law attorney turned work-at-home mom and national bestselling author who has written more than twenty books for Mills & Boon. Her work has been validated by industry awards (including an RWA Golden Heart Award and the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award) and by the fact that her kids think it’s cool that she’s “a real author.”
Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her husband and two sons. When she isn’t at the computer working on her next book, she can probably be found at the arena, watching a hockey game. Keep up to date with Brenda on Facebook, follow her on Twitter at @BrendaHarlen, or send her an e-mail at [email protected].
To my husband of twenty years:
Thanks for all of your love, support and encouragement over the past two decades—and especially for your patience and understanding when other (fictional!) men become the focus
of my attention as I work toward deadlines…
Contents
Life was all about trade-offs, Kenna Scott realized as she made her way through the corridors of Hillfield Academy, the private school she’d transferred to three weeks earlier. Her high marks had won her a scholarship to the prestigious school, but her secondhand uniform, scuffed shoes and ancient backpack still marked her as a “charity case” to her fellow students.
There was no hiding the fact that she was from the wrong part of town, where she lived in the erroneously named “Royal Towers”—a three-story apartment building with rusted balconies, cracked sidewalks and a landlord who sold dime bags in the back of the parking lot. Even working two jobs, it was the best her mother could provide for them, and putting food on the table for three kids without a penny from any of their good-for-nothing fathers wasn’t easy.
So Kenna didn’t expect anything to come easy for her, either, but it was harder than she’d thought it would be to ignore the snarky whispers and the disdainful glances of the other kids at Hillfield. Thankfully, they gave her a wide berth, as if her lower-class status might somehow be infectious.
All of them except Daniel Garrett.
At her other school, labs had been assigned alphabetically. But for some reason, Mr. Taylor liked to mix things up—test the randomness of chemistry, he explained. Basically he put names in a hat and pulled two out together, and those two would be lab partners for the duration of the semester. That was how she ended up with Daniel Garrett as her lab partner in junior year.
Which she didn’t really mind, because he wasn’t a complete goof-off like some of the other kids. Although he focused on the work they had to do, he was always asking her questions, about what books she liked to read or the kind of movies she liked to watch.
Finally, on the Friday of the third week of class and after the latest round of questioning, she asked, “What’s with the interrogation?”
“I’m trying to get to know you.”
“Just because we’re lab partners doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”
“It doesn’t have to keep us from being friends, either,” Daniel pointed out.
“And even if we were friends, it wouldn’t get you into my pants.”
“Excuse me?”
“You think I didn’t see you and your friends in the cafeteria, looking at me and snickering, probably making bets on how easy I am because I’m from South Ridge and here on a scholarship?”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, there was some talk,” he admitted. “Not because you’re a scholarship student from South Ridge but because you’re hot. And yeah, some of the guys bet that I couldn’t get you to go out with me, so I thought I’d give it a shot.”
She hadn’t expected him to admit it. And she hadn’t anticipated that a casual comment on her appearance would make her stomach feel all quivery inside. She’d often been told that she was beautiful—usually by male “friends” of her mother—and those remarks had always made her uncomfortable. As a result, she’d dressed to hide her feminine curves and downplay her appearance, but the uniform requirements at Hillfield didn’t allow her to cover up with baggy jeans or oversize sweaters.
