“Leo,” she cried. “Leo!”
He gripped her harder, drove into her until he was spent, until he came in a hot rush that stole his breath. And then he swept her into his arms, took her to the plush queen bed in the adjoining room, and did it all over again.
Morning came too soon. Anna awoke slowly to the smell of coffee and hot food, her entire body feeling more languid and relaxed than it had in a very long time. She was boneless, a mass of satisfied nerve endings and raw emotions.
She turned over in the bed, encountered nothing but pillows and sheets. Leo had clearly gotten out of bed already. Her heart turned over at the thought of him last night, of all that glorious single-minded male lust focused upon her lucky, lucky body.
He’d taken her with such animalistic passion against the door, and again in the bed, giving her no quarter at all, no mercy, as he drove her relentlessly toward shattering climax after shattering climax. But early this morning, in the hour after dawn, he’d made love to her much more tenderly, spinning pleasure up slowly and thoroughly until it crested like a high tide.
She’d loved every moment of it, craved it yet again, though it had only been a few hours. But hadn’t that been the way on the island, as well? Warmth flooded her as she remembered.
Simply put, Leo Jackson was a drug she didn’t want to quit.
Her drug of choice walked in then, carrying two cups of steaming liquid. He was wearing absolutely nothing, and her pulse skipped wildly, a trapped butterfly in a jar.
“Surely you didn’t answer the door like that,” she said evenly.
He grinned. “Of course not, darling. There was a towel. I seem to have lost it. No doubt to impress you.”
“Lucky me.”
He bent and kissed her, then handed her a coffee. “Lucky you indeed,” he said. “That’s decaf, by the way. With cream and sugar, the way you like it.”
She took a sip, her lashes dropping over her eyes. He knew how she liked her coffee. It made her heart clench tight in her chest, but she told herself not to read more into it than it was. It was simply coffee, the way she liked it, and decaf because caffeine was bad for the baby. Nothing more, nothing less. He’d had coffee with her enough over the past few days to know what she wanted.
It was not a declaration of love.
Love.
Her stomach did a slow flip. The feeling was still so new, so raw, and sometimes it snuck up on her and grabbed her by the throat. She wanted to tell him, wanted to spill the words and ease the pain of keeping them locked up tight, but she was scared, too. Scared he wouldn’t return the feeling, scared that he would look at her pitifully and say something noncommittal.
She couldn’t stand it if he did. Better to be silent and hope he felt the same way than to speak and find out he didn’t.
She reached out and touched the tattoo on his abdomen, traced the iridescent scales gently. His muscles clenched in response. It was a beautiful piece of art, seemingly alive in the soft light, but it must have hurt like hell when he’d had it done.
“Careful, or you’ll wake the sleeping dragon,” he said huskily.
“Oh, I think I can handle a dragon,” she replied, arching one eyebrow.
He grinned at her. “Indeed you can. Dragon lady.”
“Why did you get this?”
He shrugged as he settled on the bed beside her with his coffee. “A youthful decision, no doubt fueled by alcohol and bravado.”
“You can’t get a tattoo while drunk, Leo. No reputable studio will do it. And this is too fine not to have been done by a brilliant artist.”
“No, I wasn’t drunk, more’s the pity since it hurt so damn much. But I believe I made a drunken wager that led to the tattoo.”
“You could have said no,” she pointed out.
“I made a bet, Anna. I could hardly renege.”
Her heartbeat accelerated at the thought of him carrying on with something that he’d thought better of simply because he’d given his word. She didn’t like to think of the implications to their situation now. Her pulse grew thick in her ears. “Do you always do what you promise, even if it turns out to be a bad idea?”
“I like to think I don’t commit to things in the first place that are bad ideas. The tattoo is, as you say, beautiful. I don’t regret it at all.”
It was inevitable, however, that he must regret some things. Would she be one of them? She told herself to stop being fanciful, that tattoos weren’t women, but she couldn’t quite help it. She wore vulnerability like a second skin this morning. “But you do regret some of them in the end, I imagine.”
He set the coffee down on the bedside table. “Who wouldn’t? That’s life, my darling.”
She must have been frowning hard, because he leaned over and took her coffee cup away. Then he kissed her until she clung to him, lips and hands and body. Until desire flared to life inside her, hot little fingers of need caressing her and making her ache for him.
But instead of sliding her beneath him and making love to her again, he swung his long legs off the bed and stood. “Now come, you need to eat something. It’s been a while since dinner.”
Anna tried to push away the hurt throbbing through her at being rejected, though it wasn’t really a rejection so much as a postponement. Still, it stung more than it ought when she was feeling so vulnerable.
She threw back the covers, determined to be strong, and reached for her robe. “You are the one who interrupted dessert,” she reminded him.
“Did I? And here I thought I gave you a much more satisfying dessert.”
Anna laughed as she tied the belt on her robe. “What arrogance,” she teased lightly, though dread lay heavy on her heart. “Perhaps I would have preferred the cheesecake.”
He stood there before her, one leg thrust indolently out to the side, his magnificent body still naked and rippling with muscle, and swept a hand from his shoulder to his groin as if to showcase the goods. “I am, you must admit, quite worth the interruption.”
“I wouldn’t dream of denying it,” she said.
She left him getting dressed and walked over to the breakfast table. There were eggs, sausage, tomatoes and toast beneath the silver lids. Her folded newspapers lay on the table nearby, and she picked them up, wondering what silly thing the press had managed to say about her and Leo today. It was too much to hope they’d lost interest, of course. The Santina press had nothing else to do. The British tabloids were no better, though at least they filled their pages with plenty of celebrity gossip and WAG tales. Back home, she was front-page news. Here, it was a toss-up.
Not today, however, she discovered when she unfolded the first newssheet. The headline blared at her while her insides churned and a hot little flame began to lick at her.
She read it all the way through and then started again, until the moment Leo snatched the paper from her hand, swearing violently and long.
But it was too late. The words were already imprinted on her brain. How could they not be?
Lucky Leo’s Luck Runs Out—The Jilted Bride Is Pregnant!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I’M SORRY, Anna,” Leo said, his voice throbbing with anger. “I had hoped we would have longer.”
She was still trying to process it. “They took a picture. Of us kissing in front of Dr. Clemens’s office. How did they know so soon? And why did they wait to use it?”
Leo swore again and raked a hand through his hair. He looked murderously, furiously angry. She, however, felt nothing.
Or, rather, she felt numb. That’s what it was. She was perfectly numb.
It wasn’t what she’d expected to feel. It wasn’t what she’d felt when the pictures of Alex and Allegra had appeared, along with the headline proclaiming her a jilted bride. That had been embarrassing, no doubt. This, however … this was a violation. Of her life, of her baby’s life.
Of Leo’s life.
He came and gripped her shoulders, thrust his face into hers and forced her to look up at him. “It d
oesn’t matter, Anna. We’re getting married in five days. We’re just going to have to deal with this sooner rather than later.”
All her plans were wrecked. She’d wanted to marry so that by the time she began to show, the question of scandal would be dubious at best. Oh, sure, when the baby was born, anyone could count backward and figure it out. But it would be months past, and she would be a married woman with a new baby.
It had been perfect. And now it lay in ruins around her like a pile of bricks that only a moment before the wrecking ball hit was a house.
“How did they figure it out so soon?” she repeated.
Leo’s lips thinned. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
She held up her hand, the ring sparkling and dazzling in the bright morning light. Last night, she’d felt so special and hopeful when he’d taken her to dinner in an empty restaurant and given her this ring. It was everything a romantic night out should be, except for the fact it was staged. Staged because the marriage was already planned.
But she hadn’t cared, really, once he’d kissed her and brought her back here. He’d smashed every notion she’d had about how this marriage would go. He’d stripped her barriers, stripped her body, and forced his way into her soul. He was a part of her, in more ways than one, and she loved him. She’d actually had hope after last night that everything would turn out well. That she’d be happy, and that Leo would be happy with her.
Until she’d read the paper and realized their secret was out. No one would ever believe there was anything between them but an adherence to duty for the child’s sake.
Did she care? Did it matter?
It shouldn’t matter, but she found that it did. How could they ever be happy together if their marriage began under a dark cloud of suspicion and scandal? How could she ever be sure that Leo didn’t resent her for the circumstance of their marriage?
As the next few days passed, the scandal grew. The usual made-up nonsense got twisted in with the truth, and everything got blown out of proportion. She refused to talk to reporters, as did Leo—so they made things up. They found witnesses, paid doormen and waitresses and coat-check girls, to say anything and everything outrageous and untrue.
Leo grew stony and distant. They had not spent the night together since the evening before the story broke. And, much to her dismay, pictures of their lovely evening together appeared in the papers. Taken with a telephoto lens through a window, someone had caught the moment when Leo had kissed her senseless before taking her back to the hotel.
Now, it was all about appearances, about making everyone think they were blissfully happy together when they were anything but. Leo still took her to dinner, to the theater, to corporate events he had to attend. Photographers lined up in droves outside the venues, the flashbulbs snapping and questions popping like automatic gunfire.
Anna said nothing. Leo ushered her through the gauntlet with either a firm hand on her back or gripping her hand in his. He made no comment, though he did once stop abruptly when a reporter asked him what it felt like to be trapped into marriage by a gold-digging foreigner.
Anna had wrapped her arm around his and urged him to keep walking. After a minute in which she’d felt the tension stringing through him like a bow drawn to the breaking point, he’d done as she asked and continued down the walkway.
Her parents called. They were shocked, outraged and so disappointed. And yet, when her mother had begun to berate her for her impulsive nature, her father had hissed out a curse. A moment later, there had been a heavy silence.
“Anna,” her father had said into the phone while her mother started to cry in the background. “You are our daughter and we love you. If this man is not what you want, come home. We will take care of you.”
She’d squeezed the phone in her hand. “I’m getting married, Papa. It’s what I want.”
“Ne,” he had said solemnly. “Then we are happy.”
She’d hung up then, feeling miserable because she’d put them through so much. And even more miserable that her marriage to Leo was now overshadowed by her pregnancy.
Or, to be fair, it had always been overshadowed by her pregnancy. But at least it had been between the two of them and not the whole world.
The evening before the civil ceremony was finally to take place, Leo had a business dinner in a penthouse suite overlooking the Thames. Anna accompanied him at his request, since there would be spouses and partners present.
As they entered the penthouse, all the chatter died and a dozen faces turned to them. The silence was awkward until a man suddenly came forward and shook Leo’s hand, welcoming him to the gathering. The ice was broken and people behaved normally again, mingling in small groups and chatting, eventually coming together for a dinner that had Anna seated across the table and several spaces down from Leo.
She felt uncomfortable, isolated, and her eyes strayed to Leo. He laughed easily, talked to the people seated on either side of him. Anna made small talk with the old gentleman on her right. On her left, a woman pointedly ignored her, only engaging in polite small talk when it was absolutely necessary.
Anna felt the stares all night. It wasn’t that these people were scandalized. She was pretty sure they weren’t, being as wealthy and connected as they were. Some of them had no doubt been victims of the press in the past, as well.
No, it was the way they looked between her and Leo, no doubt wondering if theirs was a marriage that would last. By now, everyone knew they’d been marooned on an island together. And everyone knew, clearly, they’d had sex.
Anna was pregnant, and Leo was stepping up to do the right thing. But, poor man, did he really want to be married to such an uptight woman as she? She was trying so hard, but she was still the woman she’d always been. She still liked her calendars and reminders and intricate plans. She felt grounded that way, and she wouldn’t apologize for it.
But she’d allowed herself to wear color recently, and she’d even gone so far as to show a little bit of skin on her shoulders and arms. Leo had made her feel beautiful, and she’d felt confident enough to grow bolder in her choices. Tonight she’d chosen a pale pink sheath dress with tiny straps and a bolero jacket.
But she still wore her pearls and she still held her spine stiff and straight.
What a joke it had been to think she would have ever made a good queen. She didn’t know how to relax, in spite of all her training. She was stiff, formal and uncomfortable when she believed people were scrutinizing her. As they would have done constantly had she married Alex.
She hid a yawn behind her hand and glanced at her watch. A quarter to eleven. Leo disengaged from the conversation he was having and came to her side as if he sensed her discomfort.
“Are you tired?”
“Yes. I want to go back to the hotel and go to bed,” she said. With you, she silently added.
Leo made their excuses to the host and hostess, and then they were sitting in silence in the big limousine. Anna yawned again. She wanted him to hold his arm out, wanted to snuggle into the circle of his embrace and lay her head against his shoulder.
She wanted the warmth and happiness they’d had for that one night together. But it wasn’t going to happen. Leo, it seemed, regretted their night. Whereas she thought of it as one of the best of her life. They’d almost been happy together. For the barest of moments, she’d thought they would make this marriage work.
That he would love her as she loved him.
Instead, he sat stony and cold and she was unable to break the silence between them. Unable to utter the correct words to make everything go back to the way it was when he’d taken her to dinner four nights ago and given her an engagement ring.
“It was a nice party,” she said into the silence.
“Did you think so? I thought you were unhappy.”
She colored in the dark, though he could not see it. “I wasn’t unhappy.”
He turned his head, and she could see the flash of his teeth. “You were. You hardl
y said anything tonight.”
“That’s not true,” she replied. “I talked to those around me. The woman on my left at dinner was quite difficult, actually.”
“Probably because we dated once, long ago.”
Anna blinked. A sliver of anger uncoiled within her. And hurt. “Well, I should have guessed. Lucky Leo strikes again.”
“Anna, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she said, trying to keep her voice light and gay when she felt anything but. Hurt and anger spun together in a vortex inside her, sucking her down with it. “You can’t help that you’ve probably bedded half of London. Half of the planet, I should say.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you when I saw her tonight. I wasn’t pleased you were seated beside her, but whenever I looked in your direction, you seemed to be doing fine.”
“My training, no doubt. I am a born diplomat.” Hardly, but she wasn’t admitting that particular failure to him tonight.
“It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
“How can you do that, Casanova? Are we to flee every dinner engagement where you’ve slept with someone present? I fear we’ll never go anywhere.”
He took her hand. She jumped at his touch. Her body began to melt, to need. Hot sparks flared to life in her belly, between her legs. It had been days since he’d touched her more than perfunctorily.
“You’re nervous and upset. I understand. But let’s just get through tomorrow, shall we? We have plenty of time to figure it out from there.”
Get through tomorrow, get through tomorrow …
“Of course,” she said, removing her hand from his lest she melt into a puddle of need and beg him to take her to bed and hold her close all night long.
He wanted to get through tomorrow. As if it were an ordeal to be endured. A sentence to be served. A penalty.
It hurt.
They reached the red awning of the Crescent and he helped her from the car. She deliberately took a step back when they were on the red carpet leading into the hotel. The flash of a bulb lit up the night, followed by another and another. Leo hurried her into the marble-and-glass lobby dotted with potted palms nearly two stories tall.
The Girl Nobody Wanted Lynne Raye Harris Page 15
