Kitabı oku: «The Girl Nobody Wanted», sayfa 2

He wore a long-sleeved navy shirt, unbuttoned midchest, with a white T-shirt beneath. Half the shirt was tucked into faded, ripped jeans. The other half hung free in a kind of casual slouch that proclaimed this man didn’t care about rules.

But the truth was that he looked utterly gorgeous. The height of Bohemian fashion, while she stood there in her prim suit and felt frumpy. Stuffy. Oh, the suit was expensive, but it was staid. Safe and boring. A generation too old for her, perhaps. The stylist had tried to get her to go with a shorter hem, a nipped-in waist, but she’d refused.

She was regretting it at the moment.

“Ready, my love?” he asked, and her heart skipped a beat.

“Only if you stop calling me names,” she said, her jaw aching with the effort it took to be polite as she forced the words out.

He grinned, and her heart melted. Damn it. Damn him.

“I can try, sweet Anna.”

Somehow, that was even worse.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS a glorious morning in Santina. The sun was shining brightly in the sky and the turquoise water of the Mediterranean sparkled like diamonds beneath it. Anna buckled her seat belt and tried to calm the racing of her heart as their plane began to taxi toward the runway.

Leo was flying. She hadn’t quite expected that. When he’d said they would take his plane, she’d assumed he had a flight crew. Which he did, but he’d given them the day off to see the sights.

“Don’t you need help?” she’d asked.

“It’s a small plane,” he’d replied. “Certified for one pilot. I left the 737 at home this time.”

“It seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a short trip.”

He smiled at her, and her heart turned over. “Relax, Anna. They wouldn’t let me take off if I wasn’t licensed.”

She had to admit that he’d done a thorough check of the plane before they’d gone anywhere. He’d spent time looking at the instruments, walking around the craft, going over a checklist. Finally, when he’d deemed everything to be okay, he’d communicated with the tower.

And now they were turning onto the runway, the plane braking only momentarily while Leo said something else to the tower. Someone gave him the go-ahead, and then the plane was shooting down the runway. Anna bit her lip to stifle the laughter that wanted to break free at that very moment.

She loved everything about taking off. The charge down the runway, the plane lifting into the air, the ground falling away and her stomach going with it. She loved the way they soared into the sky with the landscape below getting smaller and smaller. She could see the rocky outcrop on which the palace was built, the faded terra-cotta roofs of the city, the glint of sunlight on glass and metal.

She slumped into her seat, a strange sense of relief pouring over her. She was leaving it all behind. She was free, at least for the next few hours, and her heart felt suddenly light.

She turned to look out Leo’s side and caught him glancing at her. Her stomach flipped.

“Happy?” he asked, and she wondered how he knew. She hadn’t given it away. She hadn’t laughed, or smiled, or reacted at all. She knew because she’d practiced it for so many years. It was essential, as a queen, to be tranquil. To hide your feelings behind a mask of cool efficiency. She was good at it.

Usually.

“I don’t, um, feel happy or sad,” she said, stumbling in the middle and hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“Liar,” he shot at her. But he grinned when he said it, and a current of warmth washed over her. “I’ve an idea, sweet Anna.”

She pointedly ignored his use of her name and the epithet he’d attached to it. “What is this idea?”

The hot, intense look he gave her had the power to melt her insides. He looked at her like he owned her, and it made little sparks fly around inside her like a racquetball bouncing off the walls of the court.

“Let’s fly to Sicily. We can spend the day there, eating pasta, viewing the volcano—” one eyebrow arched, his voice dropping an octave before he said the next two words “—making love. We’ll return to Amanti tonight and tour tomorrow.”

Anna felt her face go red even as her heart rate notched up. “Impossible,” she said.

“And why is that? Because you don’t like me? You don’t need to like me, Anna, for what I have in mind.”

She needed a fan turned on her body full blast. “I have no feelings about you at all, Mr. Jackson.”

“Really? I find that difficult to believe.”

“I don’t see why you should.”

“Because I am a Jackson, perhaps?”

She crossed her arms and gazed out the window. Below, the ocean rolled in all directions. “I could hardly hold you responsible for what your sister has done.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Whatever she has done,” he said softly, “she has not done it alone.”

Anna’s heart burned. “No, you are quite correct. It takes two, as the saying goes.”

“Indeed. Just imagine what the two of us could do together in Sicily.” His voice was seductive, full of promise.

“We’re going to Amanti. Now,” she said firmly.

“Are you sure? I’m quite worth the side trip, I assure you.”

“Good heavens, you are vain,” she said, her heart racing at the thought of doing something so insane, so out of the ordinary. “No. No, no, no.”

But a part of her wanted to say yes. She wanted to be the woman she’d never been allowed to be. She wanted to break free of her suits and her pearls and spend one glorious, hot, naked day with a man. She wanted to know what it felt like to let a man like Leo have his wicked way with her.

No, she told herself quite firmly, she did not.

But why not? Everything she’d prepared for, everything she’d thought her life was going to be, had disappeared in the blink of an eye. She was a virgin who’d never even kissed a man because she’d been saving herself for Alex Santina. Alex, who’d never kissed her properly. He’d brushed his lips across her cheek, once over her mouth, but the contact had been so light and perfunctory that she had no idea what it truly felt like to kiss a man.

And Leo wanted to take her to Sicily and make love to her. She shivered with excitement. It was preposterous, and she wasn’t going to say yes, but the idea was rather thrilling in an illicit way that had her sex tightening in response.

A static voice came over the headset then, and she jumped in surprise at the sudden sound slicing across her thoughts. She couldn’t hear what the voice said, but Leo replied. And then he was pulling on the controls and they were climbing higher and faster.

“What?” she said, her heart thudding for a different reason now. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Some unexpected turbulence. We’re climbing to avoid it.”

“Why did you ask me to go to Sicily? You’ve filed a flight plan. You can’t just change it.”

Leo flashed her another of those smiles that did things to her insides. “We aren’t a commercial aircraft, darling. I can change it if I wish. Haven’t you heard I’m eccentric that way?”

“I’ve heard nothing at all about you,” she said with a sniff. It was only partially true. Last night, when she’d gotten back to her room, she’d done an internet search on Leo Jackson.

“Excellent. So you won’t have made up your mind about me yet.”

“Oh, I’m sure I have.”

“Have you now? And what have you decided?”

Anna studied his profile. Leo Jackson was handsome and wealthy, and reputed to be intense in both his business dealings and personal relationships. He was also a serial womanizer who’d spent the past several years living in the United States, dating Hollywood starlets and supermodels and, on one memorable occasion, a gorgeous actress who was at least twenty years his senior. Of all the women he’d been linked with, that was the only one that had ever seemed to be somewhat serious.

There was no indication about what had ended the relationship, but it was definitely over. The actress had recently married someone else and adopted a baby with him.

“I think you can’t be trusted,” she said softly.

“Ah. What a shame.”

“But you don’t deny it.”

He shook his head. “That depends on how you define trust. Will I seduce you in spite of your denials that you’re attracted to me? Possibly. Will I lie to you and leave you heartbroken? Never. Because I will tell you up front that it’s not wise to have expectations beyond the physical. We can have a good time, but we aren’t getting married.”

Anna crossed her legs. Had she really thought going to Sicily with him might be thrilling? “Why would you assume that a woman might have expectations about you? Are you truly that fabulous that no one can resist you? Honestly, I’ve never met anyone so arrogant as you. Not everyone thinks you’re irresistible, you know.”

“But you do.”

Surely her face was bright red. From anger, not embarrassment, she told herself. “I do not. I don’t even like you.”

He laughed as if she’d admitted something she shouldn’t have. “And here I thought you didn’t have any feelings at all about me.”

“I’m rapidly changing my mind.”

The look he gave her jolted her to her core. Dark, sensual, breathtakingly intense. “We could have fun in Sicily, Anna. Hot, decadent, pleasurable fun.”

Her heart was thrumming. “Please stop saying we. We aren’t doing anything together, Mr. Jackson.”

He laughed again. “Back to that? Have you ever considered, sweet Anna, that perhaps it’s time you let your hair down a bit? Time to let go of that buttoned-up perfection you try so hard to project and have some fun?”

Anna clenched her hands into fists in her lap. He didn’t know her, didn’t know what he was saying. He was simply guessing, because that’s what men like him did. They got beneath your skin and made you desire them, made you think they understood you when in fact they only understood how to lower your defenses. It was a parlor trick, the kind of thing bogus fortune tellers did every day at the carnival.

She might not be experienced, but she wasn’t stupid.

“You’re grabbing at straws,” she said calmly. “I am well aware I’m not perfect. And I like the way I’m dressed.”

“It’s not a bad way to dress if you’re chairing a board meeting,” he said. “But it’s not your true style.”

“I don’t think you have the first clue about my style.”

“I’m not sure you do, either,” he said. “But we could start with naked and go from there.”

Heat flared in her core, impossible heat. Her limbs were jelly whenever he mentioned the word naked. She was in danger of turning into a slack-jawed nitwit if he kept it up. “Do you ever quit?”

“I do,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet.”

Anna groaned. It was uncharacteristic of her, but she couldn’t help it. “Why are you torturing me? Why can’t we just fly to Amanti, view the coast and go back to Santina?”

Leo looked at her, his expression suddenly very serious. “Do you really want to go back to Santina? Is that where you want to be today?”

She turned to look out the window. The sea spread in all directions, as far as the eye could see. It was hard to believe they could be in the Mediterranean and it could still feel so remote. As if they were the only two people in the world. There were no boats out here, no other planes, nothing but the blue sky, the bright sun and dazzling water.

She was alone with him, and while he frustrated her, he also made her feel things she’d not felt before: attractive, alive, interesting. She wasn’t quite ready to give that up yet.

“No,” she said softly. And then she turned to face him, her jaw hardening. “No, I don’t want to go back.”

Leo wasn’t sure why, but he wanted her. She was quite possibly the most uptight woman he’d ever met, but for some reason that intrigued him. Like now, when she sat there beside him and tried to look stony. He wasn’t sure she realized it, but stony didn’t really work when you had wide jade-green eyes that showed every ounce of hurt you were feeling, whether you wanted them to or not.

And Anna was hurting. He’d seen her across the room last night, looking so isolated and alone, and he’d wanted to know who she was. Graziana Ricci had laughed dismissively. “Oh, that’s Anna Constantinides. The jilted bride.”

The jilted bride. He’d watched her closely then, wondering what she must be feeling as she listened to the toasts to Prince Alessandro and Allegra. She’d looked so cool, so bored, so perfect and untouchable dressed all in icy white—but then her fingers had strayed to the pearl necklace she wore, and he’d noticed they were trembling. When she’d turned toward him, the light from the chandeliers caught her just right and he’d realized she was on the verge of tears.

Shimmering tears she never once let fall.

She’d been a beautiful ice queen in the center of that gathering, the most regal and elegant of them all—and he’d wanted to see if he could melt the ice surrounding her heart. Leo lived for challenges, and Anna Constantinides was a challenge. It wasn’t simply that he wanted to seduce her. He wanted to make her laugh, wanted to see her eyes light up with pleasure.

Anyone who’d seen the newspapers, who’d read those ugly headlines and even uglier stories, would know she was suffering. It made him think of another time, another woman, who had also been deeply hurt by what the papers had said about her. His mother had kept the articles from when her affair with Bobby had been splashed through the papers. He’d found them in her personal documents when he was eighteen. She’d been dead for eight years by then.

Until that moment, he’d thought the most devastating thing she’d had in her possession had been the positive paternity test naming Bobby Jackson as his father—a fact Bobby had denied until the test was brought out in court after Leo’s mother’s death—but the articles had given Leo a whole new level of understanding about what had happened between his parents.

Though Bobby had raised him from the age of ten onward, their relationship could never be termed ordinary. Bobby didn’t seem to know how to be a father, either to Leo or his siblings. He tried, but he was more of a dotty uncle than anything.

After Leo found the articles and confronted his father, their relationship had soured. Soon after that, he’d gone to the States to forge his way in business. He’d wanted to prove he didn’t need Bobby, or the Jackson name, to succeed. He’d built the Leonidas Group from the ground up, and he’d made more money than Bobby had ever earned, even at the height of his football career.

Since Leo had returned to London recently, he’d been trying damn hard to forge a new relationship with his father. Though it wasn’t perfect, they were finally learning to let go of the past and be friends.

Just then, Anna glanced down at her slim gold watch and turned sharply toward him as she realized how long they’d been flying. “Are we lost? Because we should have been there by now.”

Leo flexed his fingers on the controls. “We aren’t lost, darling. I thought it might be nice to fly for a little while.”

He found flying soothing, especially when he wanted to think.

But Anna was used to structure. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “But why?” she blurted. “There is much to see on Amanti!”

He glanced over at her. Such an uptight woman. He found himself wanting to unpin her hair and see how long it might be. And he definitely wanted to get her out of that bland suit. Grey. Why was the woman wearing grey? The red of her shirt was the only spot of color in her drab outfit. Didn’t she know she should be dressed all in red? In vibrant, sassy colors that made the green of her eyes stand out even more than they already did?

She was utterly beautiful, and trying so hard to hide that beauty. He found himself wanting to know why.

“And do you really want to be on Amanti today?” he asked coolly.

Her eyes were wide, her expression haunted. He didn’t have to explain what he meant. The newspapers and tabloids couldn’t seem to leave the story of Prince Alessandro’s surprise engagement alone, especially since he’d picked Allegra Jackson—of those scandalous Jacksons—as his bride.

Anna couldn’t help but be dragged into the publicity. She was the antithesis of his family, and probably far more suited to being a royal bride by virtue of her lack of scandalous relations.

Which also meant she was the perfect sacrificial lamb for the roasting fires of the papers that dogged the Santinas’ every move.

The press loved every minute of her humiliation. Each story that featured Alessandro and Allegra’s forbidden love also featured Anna. She endured it with quiet dignity, but Leo wondered how close she was getting to breaking. She was only human after all. It couldn’t be easy to see her former fiancé with Allegra.

“I can’t hide forever,” she said, drawing herself up regally, shuttering her hurt behind her lowered lashes. “The press will have their fun until they tire of the story. If I run away or hide from the world, it will be a thousand times worse.”

Her fingers strayed to her neck, caught at her pearls. “No, I have to endure it until it goes away.”

Leo swore. He wanted to protect her, and he wanted to shake her at the same time. “It’s acceptable to be angry, Anna. And it’s acceptable to want to escape.”

“I never said I wasn’t angry,” she snapped before closing her eyes again and saying something in what he assumed was her native Greek. When she trained those green eyes on him again, they were as placid as a secluded lake. She was good. Very good. But he could see the fire she couldn’t quite hide in the depths of that gaze. And it pulled at him more than it ought.

“These things pass,” she said. “And now we must go to Amanti and begin our tour. The last thing I need is for the press to think I’m off being promiscuous with you.”

“Perhaps you need a little promiscuity in your life,” he replied, very aware he was being self-serving as he said it. “A little fun that’s about you, not about others or what they expect from you.”

“You’re only saying this because it would suit your purposes if I agreed with you. Stop trying to seduce me, Mr. Jackson. It won’t work.”

It was close to the mark, and inexplicably it made him angry. Except that he wasn’t quite sure if it was her or himself he was angry with. He definitely wanted her. She intrigued him. She didn’t seem to care who he was or what he offered her—and that made him think of something else, something he’d not let himself consider before. “Were you in love with him?”

Anna spluttered. He loved ruffling her cool, though he hoped the answer was no. For some reason, he needed it to be no.

“That’s none of your business! We hardly know each other, Mr. Jackson,” she said, her entire body stiff with outrage. Her long fingers gripped the arm of the seat. Her nails were manicured and neat, and there was a pale line on her left ring finger where her engagement ring had once sat. He imagined those elegant fingers playing his body like a fine instrument, and nearly groaned.

Since when was he interested in prim little schoolteachers anyway? Not that Anna was a schoolteacher—she was far too well bred and rich to have an actual job—but she reminded him of one. The kind of teacher who wore buttoned-up suits to work and lacy knickers beneath. Whether she realized it or not, the woman seethed with pent-up sexuality.

Whoever got her to let her hair down and give in to her sensual nature would be one lucky man. He pictured Anna in a bed, her naked body lying against red sheets, those full kissable lips open and eager as he lowered himself onto her and captured her mouth with his own.

Suddenly, flying was getting damned uncomfortable. Leo forced himself to think of something unsexy—like Graziana Ricci’s collagen-plumped lips smeared in cherry-red lipstick—and hoped his body would take the hint.

“How can we possibly get to know each other,” he said, “if you keep retreating behind that starched formality every time I ask you a question?”

“We don’t need to know each other. I’m taking you to Amanti so you can decide whether or not you want to build a hotel there. Beyond that, I’m sure we’ll never see each other again. Now, if you will please take us to Amanti, we can get on with the tour.”

Leo shot her a glance. She was prickly as hell and completely fascinating. “You don’t like it when your plans get changed, do you? You’re very much a list girl.”

Her head whipped around. “A list girl? What, pray tell, is that?”

“You make lists. You like a long list of things to do and then you check them off one by one. There’s no room for spontaneity on your lists.” He made a checkmark in the air. “Woke up early, check. Ate breakfast, check.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being organized, Mr. Jackson,” she said. He could hear the starch in her voice, the outrage she tried to keep hidden. She was trying to keep him at a distance, and he wouldn’t allow it.

“If you call me Mr. Jackson one more time,” he growled, “I’ll keep flying until we reach Sicily.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Her arms folded over her prim grey suit, her chin thrusting forward in challenge. Clearly, Anna Constantinides didn’t know him very well. No matter how successful he’d become, he’d never shaken that raw, edgy side of his personality that liked to push barriers to their limit. No doubt it came from trying to fit into the Jackson household when he’d been young and motherless and uncertain of his place in their lives. He’d pushed and rebelled, certain his father would throw him out, but Bobby had never wavered in his acceptance once he’d stepped up and admitted paternity.

“I would, in fact,” Leo replied. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Her jaw clenched tight and he felt suddenly wrong for phrasing it that way. She had everything to lose, or so she thought. A trip to Sicily with him would be devastating in Anna’s world. Because she was already the focus of attention and she couldn’t fathom drawing yet more. Never mind that if she were only to behave as if she didn’t care, the media would soon leave her alone. He knew from experience that they liked nothing better than a victim—and Anna was a perfect victim right now.

“I don’t want to go to Sicily, Leo. I want to go to Amanti.”

“Tell the truth, Anna. You don’t want to do that, either. But you’ve committed to it and so you want to get there without giving the media anything else to speculate about.”

She made a frustrated noise. “Yes. This is precisely the truth. If I could run to Sicily or Egypt or Timbuktu and not have to endure another moment of this shame, I would do it. But I can’t run, Leo. I have to carry on as always and wait for the scandal to pass.”

It was perhaps the most honest thing she’d said yet. But he wanted more. “Tell me this, then. If you could have an affair, no consequences, no one the wiser, would you do so?”

She didn’t say anything for the longest time. “I… I…”

But whatever she was about to say was lost as a light on the instrument panel flashed on. A tight knot formed in Leo’s stomach as he turned his focus to the plane. He’d checked everything before they’d left Santa Maria, and everything had been fine. He wouldn’t have taken off otherwise.

But something had changed in the half hour since.