Excerpted from A Wife On Paper : Contract Brides (Romance) by Liz Fielding. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
His Wife On Paper ... Guy Dymoke was the first person she saw as she stepped from the car. That wasn’t what surprised her. He was the kind of man who would stand out in any crowd. Tall, broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, his thick dark hair streaked with sun bleached highlights, he made everyone else look as if they were two dimensional figures in a black and white photograph. The effect was mesmerising. She saw it in the effect he had on the people around him. Had to steel herself against it, even now. She wasn’t even surprised that he had taken the time from his busy life to fly in from whatever distant part of the world he currently called home to attend his half-brother’s funeral. He was a man who took the formalities very seriously. He believed that every t should be properly crossed, every i firmly dotted. He’d made no secret of his disapproval of her and Steven’s decision not to do the "decent" thing and get married. Demonstrated it by his absence from their lives. As if it was any of his business. No, what truly astonished her was that he had the nerve to show up at all after three years in which they hadn’t seen or heard from him. She hadn’t cared for herself, but for Steven. Poor Steven… Thankfully, she didn’t have to make an effort to hide her feelings as their gaze briefly met over the heads of the gathered mourners. Her face was frozen into a white mask. Nothing showed. There was nothing to show. Just a gaping hollow, an emptiness yawning in front of her. She knew if she allowed herself to think, to feel, she’d never get through this, but as she walked past him, looking neither to left nor right, he said her name, very softly. ‘Francesca…’ Softly. Almost tenderly. And the ache in her throat intensified. The mask threatened to crack… Anger saved her. Hot, shocking, like a charge of lightning. How dare he come here today! How dare he make a show of offering her sympathy when he couldn’t be bothered to so much as lift a telephone when Steven was alive and it would have actually meant something. Did he expect her to stop? Listen to his empty condolences? Allow him to take her arm, sit beside her in church as if he gave a damn… Just for appearances. Hypocrite,’ she replied as, looking neither to left nor right, she swept passed him.