A six-month marriage; a quick annulment Blake Sefton had married Sapphire to acquire her father's Cotswolds farm. And at first she'd been too besotted with him to realize that his passion burned for his mistress, Miranda, not for his virgin bride. Then Sapphire had discovered Blake's secret love letters and the reason he'd been unable to bring himself to share his wife's bed. Painfully disillusioned, she'd run away and divorced him. Now four years later she was considering remarrying Blake—temporarily—to ease her dying father's mind. After all, Blake hadn't desired her before, so what would he want with her now?

"The choice is yours," Joel was saying Joel's biting contempt of her over a teenage episode that he had wrongly interpreted had permanently scarred Lissa—left her unable to respond to any man. Now, years later, they were at loggerheads over their joint guardianship of her sister's little girls. No way would Lissa give them up. But Joel's proposal of marriage came as a shock. She'd learned to live without Joel. How could she possibly learn to live with him? Knowing his contempt for her was still there, knowing that she loved him.

He offered her marriage—but only in name Inheriting a small cottage near London had allowed Claire Richards to achieve independence for herself and her young daughter, Lucy. So when Jay Fraser accused her of encouraging Lucy's friendship with his own motherless daughter just to trap him into marriage, she was outraged. But then her cottage was damaged during a storm and Claire had to accept Jay's offer of shelter. She was surprised to find him a considerate, perceptive man, gentle and affectionate with the children. And when he proposed a loveless marriage of convenience, she agreed for her daughter's sake. Too late Claire discovered that she wanted' Jay to be more than just a father for Lucy....