The Marriage Demand. Penny Jordan
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.
The Marriage Demand
Penny Jordan
MILLS & BOON
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CHAPTER ONE
‘DID you really think I wouldn’t recognise you?’
The ice-cold darts of numbing, mind-blitzing shock pierced Faith’s emotions as she stood staring in horrified nauseous disbelief. Nash! How could he be here? Wasn’t he supposed to be living in America, running the multi-billion-pound empire she had read in the financial press he had built up? But, no, he was quite definitely here, all six foot-odd male animal danger of him: the man who had haunted her nightmares both sleeping and waking for the last decade; the man who…
‘Faith, you haven’t met our benefactor yet, have you?’
Their what? So far as Faith had understood, the huge Edwardian mansion so belovedly familiar to her had been handed over to the charity she worked for by the trustees of the estate that owned it. If she had thought—guessed—suspected—for one single moment that Nash…Somehow she managed to repress the shudder tearing through her and threatening to completely destroy her professionalism.
The Ferndown Foundation, begun originally by her boss Robert Ferndown’s late grandfather, provided respite homes for children and their parents who were living in situations of financial hardship. The Foundation owned homes in several different parts of the country, and the moment Faith had seen their advertisement for a qualified architect to work directly under the Chief Executive she had desperately wanted to get the job. Her own background made her empathise immediately and very intensely with the plight of children living in hardship…
She tensed as she heard Nash speaking.
‘Faith and I already know one another.’
A huge wave of anger and fear swamped Faith as she listened, dreading what he might be going to say and knowing that he was enjoying what she was feeling, relishing it, almost gloating over the potential pleasure of hurting her, damaging her. And yet this was a man who, according to Robert, had, along with the other trustees of the estate, deeded the property as an outright gift to their charity—an act of such generosity that Faith could scarcely believe it had come from Nash.
She could feel Robert looking at her, no doubt waiting for her to respond to Nash’s comment. But it wasn’t Robert’s attentive smiling silence that was reducing her to a fear-drenched bundle of raw nerve-endings and anxiety. Grittily she reminded herself of everything she had endured and survived, of what she had achieved and how much she owed to the wonderful people who had supported her.
One of those people had been her late mother and the other…As she looked around the study she could almost see the familiar face of the man who had been such an inspiration to her, and she could almost see too…She closed her eyes as she was flooded with pain and guilt, then opened them but refused to look at Nash; she could almost feel him willing her to turn round and make herself vulnerable to his hostility.
‘It was a long time ago,’ she told Robert huskily, ‘over ten years.’
She could feel her fear sliding sickly through her veins like venom, rendering her incapable of doing anything to protect herself as she waited for the first blow to fall.
She knew Robert had been disappointed by her hesitation and reluctance when he had told her that he was giving her full control of the conversion of Hatton House.
‘It’s absolutely ideal for our purposes,’ he had enthused. ‘Three floors, large grounds, a stable block that can be converted alongside the main house.’
Of course there had been no way she could tell him the real reason for her reluctance, and now there would be no need—no doubt Nash would tell him for her.
The sharp ring of Robert’s mobile phone cut through her thoughts. As he answered the call he smiled warmly at her.
Robert had made no secret of his interest in her, and had made sure that she was included as his partner at several semi-social events he had to attend as the charity’s spokesperson. But so far their relationship was strictly non-sexual, and had not even progressed to the point where they had had a proper date. But Faith knew that that was only a matter of time—or at least it had been.
‘I’m sorry,’ Robert apologised as he ended his call. ‘I’m going to have to go straight back to London. There’s a problem with the Smethwick House conversion. But I’m sure that Nash, here, will look after you, Faith, and show you over the house. I doubt I’ll be able to get back here tonight, but I should be able to make it tomorrow.’
He was gone before Faith could protest, leaving her alone with Nash.
‘What’s