The Girl Nobody Wanted. Lynn Harris Raye

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ