High-Stakes Bachelor. Cindy Dees

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СКАЧАТЬ he tore his gaze away from her and spun. He all but ran out of the bathroom and looked so silly doing it she had to laugh. Guy acted like he’d never seen a naked female before. Who’d have thought a hunk like him would be so self-conscious around women? She wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.

      The tranquility of her bath destroyed, she rinsed the last of the soap out of her hair with the detachable showerhead thingie. She stood up to dry off and it felt decadent to stand naked before that huge window with all of nature’s glory right outside.

      She glanced down onto the broad stone veranda below and started. Jackson was staring up at her, transfixed. The glass was one-way, wasn’t it? If he’d lied about that, she was going to kill him!

      Wrapping a towel around herself fast, she backed away from the window and dried off hastily. Using the blow-dryer she found in the big armoire where the towels and shampoo had been, she dried her hair into its usual shoulder-length frame of her face.

      She actually dug into the makeup Minerva had put in the medicine cabinet and applied mascara, blush and lip gloss. Only time she usually wore the stuff was when she had a date, which happened exactly never. Tonight, though, it gave her the confidence boost she needed to go downstairs and face Jackson after he’d accidentally invaded her bath. That had been an accident, hadn’t it?

      Naked, she moved out into the bedroom and smiled at the simple navy knit dress laid out on the bed. Its lines were high-end designer all the way. The lingerie lying beside it made her simultaneously blush and sigh with pleasure. Jackson’s grandmother wore silk thongs and see-through lace bras? Go, granny!

      She’d secretly wished to own stuff like that over the years, but a combination of no one to wear it for and scraping by so she could pay her college tuition meant she’d never indulged the fantasy.

      The sexy lingerie was a decent fit. She was more endowed up top than Minerva, which meant her bra cups ranneth over in a rather spectacular display of cleavage. But it was better than crawling back into her dirty, smelly camisole.

      She pulled the casual knit dress over her head and the kitten-soft fabric caressed her body like a whisper. It was snug to the hips and then flared into swirls around her legs. The overall effect was to accentuate her curves until she looked like some kind of sexy vamp.

      She stared at herself in the mirror. Who knew she could look so good in the right cut of clothing? Jackson’s eyeballs were going to fall out his head when he got a load of this plunging neckline and bulging boobage. A sneaking suspicion that Minerva had laid out this dress for that exact reason crept into her mind. So. Granny was machinating to throw the two of them together, huh? Fascinating. Jackson wasn’t lying when he’d said his grandmother was pushing him to settle down and start a family.

      She wished the woman luck but held out no real hope of Minerva succeeding. After all, Jackson had been a superstar for nearly five years and could have had pretty much any woman on the planet in that time. But he’d never shown the slightest inclination to get married. There was no reason to think things would change at this late date.

      Still, she gave the neckline one last downward tug before heading downstairs. Next to the library was a music room with a grand piano dominating the space. On a shelf behind it, she spotted...

      Oh, my God. Is that an Oscar? She moved into the room and stopped before the famous statue on the mantle over a huge fireplace.

      “I won that for being a coproducer on a documentary last year. I’d like to win another one with the new production company,” a male voice said from behind her.

      She whipped around to face Jackson, the skirt swirling around her hips.

      His eyes went wide as he stared at her. “Ana, what happened to you?”

      Alarm slammed through her. She reached for her hair, her face. “What? What’s wrong?” She hadn’t seen any major bruising when she’d checked herself in the mirror before she came downstairs. Most of her scrapes and scratches were on her arms and hands. Amazing really, considering what she’d been through.

      “You’ve got—” He broke off. “You’re—”

      Her alarm escalated to panic. “What the hell’s wrong, Jackson? I’ve got what?”

      “Uh. Breasts.”

      She stared back at him. “I know. But what’s wrong?”

      “Nothing,” he mumbled. “You just look...”

      She strode over to him and stared up at him. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s going on, right now.”

      “Jesus, Ana. Nothing’s wrong. You just look like...a...a woman. A hot one. With great...well...cleavage. That dress... You in it... Christ...” he mumbled.

      Oh. She stood down from threat mode, letting out the breath she’d been holding. He’d scared the hell out her for a minute there. A little irked, she said, “I’ve been a woman all day, you know.”

      “Well, yeah. But you weren’t wearing stuff like that when we were fighting.”

      “The operative word being fighting,” she retorted. “Kinda hard to do that in heels and a French manicure.”

      He cleared his throat and finally managed to tear his gaze away from her chest. She owed Minerva a big thanks later. At least the guy had finally figured out she was not only a girl, but a marginally attractive one. For him, that was apparently a big breakthrough.

      “How about that tour of the rest of the house now?” she asked.

      “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

      He guided her through the mansion. It was a fairly simple layout, actually. A series of spacious rooms opened off the original central hall that ran from front to back. She gathered a kitchen was beyond the dining room he showed her and servant quarters were off in another direction. The entire back of the house was new and boasted big picture windows looking out on the ocean. The blend of old and modern was seamless and comfortable.

      “There’s Gran on the veranda. Looks like Rosie’s got dinner ready.”

      “Rosie?”

      “Gran’s housekeeper, cook, companion and second-in-command around here. Be warned, she runs a tight ship. Don’t cross her.”

      A tiny, gray-haired woman stepped into the family room just then. “Jackson Prescott. What lies are you telling your lady friend about me?”

      “Rosie, this is Ana. And this is the infamous Rosie McKay.”

      Wow. She was used to being the shortest person in a room, but Rosie barely reached her nose. The woman must not top four foot ten. But her eyes sparkled brighter than a sparrow’s and she looked ready to take on the world.

      “Don’t listen to a thing that boy says about me,” Rosie declared. “Lies. All of it.”

      Ana grinned. “I won’t listen to what he says about you if you won’t listen to what he says about me.”

      “Agreed. Now head on outside. Supper’s served, and don’t you dare let my famous fried chicken get cold.”

      She shooed СКАЧАТЬ