The Bride's Secret

HELEN BROOKS

Should she confess to her husband?Marianne had been thrilled when Hudson de Sance proposed. But could she really go ahead with the wedding? She was being blackmailed, and the only solution seemed to be disappearing from Hudson's life… .Only, Hudson had found her, and he was still determined to make Marianne his wife. But now he was driven by revenge, not love! Marianne longed to marry him - but what would happen when Hudson discovered his bride's secret?

“When you agreed to marry me, you were happy.” (#uad82212c-69f7-5df2-884c-212ecb35f7e7)About the Author (#u248b42d3-427d-5946-9aaa-e51d278084a1)Title Page (#u2799c589-c760-5a2c-8328-28fd8f35997b)CHAPTER ONE (#ua3b25973-fd9b-5853-90f2-1ead5b965dce)CHAPTER TWO (#uca7e4e27-b76f-50ba-ac85-28dbed98e650)CHAPTER THREE (#uaa631221-6745-54c2-8de6-5d1827c550ed)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“When you agreed to marry me, you were happy.”

Hudson continued, “There was nothing, not a hint of anything being wrong. And then, within hours, it had all changed. What happened when you left me, Annie?” he asked softly. “Something did. Something...catastrophic.” His eyes were boring into her soul.

This was too close—he was getting too close.

“Annie?” He touched her face tenderly.

“After all we meant to each other, you really think I would be content to let you go without any explanation?”

What could she say? She stared at him wide-eyed until she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer and dropped her gaze. “You have no choice,” she stated as firmly as she could, considering her heart was thundering in her ears....

HELEN BROOKS lives in Northamptonshire, England, and is married with three children. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife and mother, her spare time is at a premium, but her hobbies include reading and walking her two energetic and very endearing young dogs. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty, and sent the result off to Harlequin.

The Bride’s Secret

Helen Brooks

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

CHAPTER ONE

‘MARIANNE? What’s the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

Marianne heard Keith speak but she could no more have dredged up a reply at that moment than flown to the moon. That big, lean body—the way he was holding his head—there was only one person in the world who stood with such arrogance and disregard for the rest of the human throng. It had to be Hudson de Sance.

‘Marianne?’ Now Keith reached out and turned her face to his, after staring perplexedly in the direction of her fixed gaze for a moment or two. He couldn’t see anything unusual in the well-dressed, cosmopolitan collection of businessmen and holiday-makers enjoying an alfresco lunch in the open-air dining room of the hotel where they were staying—it was exactly the sort of clientele he would expect to see in a first-class hotel such as this one in the middle of Tangier. ‘What is it?’

‘What? Oh, nothing... I’m just daydreaming,’ she said quietly.

It didn’t work, but Marianne hadn’t expected it to. She and Keith had worked together long enough for him to know when she was evading the truth.

‘Don’t give me that; you resemble someone who’s just had a hard punch where it hurts,’ Keith said worriedly, his eyes returning to the well-populated tables in front of them. ‘Have you seen someone you know? Someone you’d rather not see?’

‘Just leave it, Keith, please.’ Her gaze had briefly swept the area along with his, and she felt weak with relief to find the spectre from the past had vanished.

It couldn’t have been Hudson, she told herself reassuringly. There were probably dozens—hundreds—of tall, dark, brooding men who inclined their heads in that particular way, and she had only seen the back of the man anyway as he had stood