Always The Bridesmaid – Nina Harrington

Not four. Three. Lucy, Jared and their mother. He had not mentioned his father at all. From the little Lucy had told her, Amy knew their dad had left them when she was ten—which meant Jared must have been about fourteen years old at the time. Her eyes pricked with tears, and she laced her hand with his, forcing apart his fingers, which had tightened into a ball.

Her touch acted like a catalyst, and he ripped his eyes away from the stonework and focused on her face as his fingers relaxed and squeezed hers back, leaving it to Amy to break the silence. ‘Those are wonderful memories. How often do you get to see Lucy and your mother? Apart from work?’ ‘Mum?’ He shrugged a reply. ‘She gets over to New York once or twice a year. She’s happily remarried now, with her own life in France.

We’ll catch up next week.’ ‘And what about Lucy? Do you meet up in the office every day?’ ‘Not at all. I’m either on the road, or she’s working on a project with Mike. They run the office for me most of the time.’ Amy stopped and turned so that she was facing Jared. ‘I have an idea. You can tell me to mind my own business, but here goes.’ She took a breath as Jared crossed his arms in quiet resolution.

‘This time next week your only sister will be a married woman. Right now she is in France, planning to fly over on Tuesday evening. If you were to drive to France and pick her up in person then you would be together for a couple of hours, just the two of you. Sort of a last chance to be together as brother and sister before she starts her new life as Mrs Mike Gerard.

Your mum and her family can still arrive on Thursday, as planned.’ She gritted her teeth and pretended to duck. ‘What do you think?’ Jared unclenched his arms and looked into her face for a few seconds, before replying in a low, intense voice, ‘Do you like La Boheme? I thought we could go to the opera.’ Amy sighed out loud and grinned, desperate to lift his mood. ‘It’s my favourite.’ Jared smiled his closed-mouth smile, and then took a firmer grip of her hand as he bit his lower lip.

‘Then I’ll order tickets for next week.’ ‘Next week? I thought you were going back to New York?’

“Let’s make a deal,” Amy whispered in Jared’s ear. “I will allow you to help with the wedding, but only on one condition. You do the work yourself. Not your PA, not your events planner, not your brilliant admin team. You. Or is the great Jared Shaw scared of getting his hands dirty?” And she looked up at him with the sweetest, most adoring openmouthed smile, complete with fluttering eyelashes for the benefit of the onlookers.

“Do we have a deal? Squeeze once for yes and twice for no.” Jared tightened his grip on Amy’s waist. There was no backing out. He squeezed. Once. Dear Reader, Thank you for choosing Always the Bridesmaid. One of my fondest childhood memories is visiting the public library with my mother, and staring in awe at the shelves packed with wonderful bright covers.

Books opened up a world of excitement, danger and romance for me, and I have been a compulsive reader ever since. That sense of wonder has never left me. Since then I have read some of my favorite Harlequin novels so many times that the pages are held together with staples! I am especially thrilled that my first Harlequin novel will be published in 2009.

Many congratulations to Harlequin on the first sixty years. Long may we continue to delight readers. I would love to hear from my readers, and you can get in touch and find out my latest news by visiting www.ninaharrington.com. Nina Harrington Nina Harrington Always the Bridesmaid TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND Nina Harrington grew up in rural Northumberland, England, and decided at the age of eleven that she was going to be a librarian— because then she could read all of the books in the public library whenever she wanted!

Since then she has been a shop assistant, a community pharmacist, a technical writer, a university lecturer, a volcano walker and an industrial scientist, before taking a career break to realize her dream of being a fiction writer.When she is not creating stories that make her readers smile, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wine—and talking, for which she has had specialist training.

This is Nina’s debut book! To all the wonderful writers in the Romantic Novelists’ Association, who made this book possible. CHAPTER ONE AMY EDLER had three problems. All female. And all of them were demanding her attention at that very minute—or there would be tears.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 017bdb4c59c2da5a
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,058,379 bytes (1.009 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 214
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 270.15 minutes
• Total Words: 54,030
• Total Characters: 293,473
• Average Words per Page: 252.48
• Average Characters per Page: 1371.37

Most Frequent Words

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