Husbands and Other Strangers

Husbands and Other Strangers
Marie Ferrarella

DEAR DIARY:The first face I saw after hitting my head on my brother's boat was that of a gorgeous stranger…a stranger that everyone said was my husband. Taylor Conway is the type of man that no one forgets, so I thought it was my brothers' idea of a joke. How wrong I was! There's something about this gorgeous, determined man that's grown on me. And whether Taylor's really a stranger or the man I was head over heels in love with, I can't stop thinking about him. I just can't understand: Why would I erase my husband from my mind? I've got to find out for sure….

“I don’t know who you are.”

If Gayle was putting him on, Taylor was going to kill her. Slowly.

“You’re not kidding?” Taylor ground out each one of the words slowly, giving her every opportunity to recant. Praying she’d take it.

Why were her brothers doing this to her? “Sam, Jake, what’s going on here?”

Gayle looked from Sam to Jake, then her eyes came to rest on the stranger. Her brothers had played pranks on her before. But this was going a little bit too far.

Gayle gave each of them as much of a piercing, demanding look as she could muster, under the circumstances. “Jake, Sam, one of you tell me. I want to know. Just who is this man?”

Husbands and Other Strangers

Marie Ferrarella

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

MARIE FERRARELLA

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA

Award-winning author has written over 140 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To Charlie, and remembering

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

His hands were gentle, so incredibly gentle. They passed over her body slowly, like a warm spring breeze. The hands of a lover. Caressing her. Stroking her. Making her yearn.

She knew instinctively that they were powerful hands—hands that could have just as easily snapped a neck in two if unrestrained anger had flashed through his veins. Which made it all the more wondrous that he could touch her this way. As if he were worshipping her.

As if he were making love to her with just his hands, just his fingertips.

He was making love to her.

A moan slipped from her lips, as if the pleasure that filled her was just too much to contain, to keep captive within the vessel of her body. It overflowed from every pore.

Drenching her.

Drenching him.

And then his hands were no longer blazing a trail along her skin. His lips were there instead, anointing her body. She could feel herself trembling as his mouth, ever so lightly, skimmed along her flesh, following the very same path that his fingers had traced just a moment ago.

A century ago, when time began.

She couldn’t see him.

Why couldn’t she see him? Why, when every fiber of her being felt him, knew him, wanted him, couldn’t she see his face? No matter how she tried, how she turned, she couldn’t see him. His identity remained hidden from her view.

Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see. She could only sense him. It was as if something inside of her prevented her from seeing him.

He wasn’t a stranger. How could he be? She knew who he was, at least in her soul. Somehow, deep within the secret recesses of her mind, she had always known, that he would be coming for her. Coming to her. Whoever he was, he was her soul mate, her intended, the one she had been destined for from the very moment destiny began.

Destined to love until the last sands of time blew away into the dark abyss of eternity.

So if her soul knew him so well, why couldn’t she see him?

Gayle Conway strained, trying to turn her head, aching for a chance to get a better view. Any view. Aching to see.

But something was holding her back, restraining her movement. A heavy weight was pressing down on her. And there was such exhaustion consuming her she couldn’t breathe. Still, with her last ounce of strength, she struggled against the iron bands on her arms.

A sense of overwhelming loss edged out the pleasure within her, like a blot of ink staining every square inch of the bright, colorful material it had been spilled on, obliterating it.