The Girl Nobody Wanted Lynne Raye Harris

by Lynne Raye Harris

  “Then I hope, when the news breaks, you aren’t hurt by it.”

  “If I am, I’ll get over it. I’ve had a lot of practice recently.” She said it to be brave, but inside she quaked.

  He took her chin in his fingers, held her steady, their gazes locking. “You are a dragon lady, Anna. The fiercest, strongest, bravest woman I know. You survived a plane crash, two days on a deserted island and more bad press than any one person should have to endure. And you’ve done it all with grace and dignity. You will survive this, too.”

  His words pierced her to her soul. No one had ever, ever called her fierce or strong or brave. Competent, organized, pretty—yes. But fierce?

  “It’s my intention,” she said softly.

  “Excellent.”

  He tilted her chin up, and then leaned in and kissed her. The touch of his mouth was a pleasurable shock. His lips were hot against hers, his mouth infinitely more demanding than it had been on the street in front of Dr. Clemens’s office. Anna melted into the kiss, though she told herself she should be more reserved with him. More careful. The only person who could get hurt in this situation was her.

  Leo was nothing if not famous for his exploits with women. What meant the world to her was simply passing time to him.

  But, like it or not, she felt something for him. She’d known it for the past month, though she’d denied it to herself over and over. Leo made her feel things that Alex never had. She felt beautiful, alive. Wanted, needed. Perhaps they were false sensations, but they were wonderful while they lasted. While she believed them.

  His tongue slid across the seam of her lips and she opened to him, unable to stop the little moan that escaped her when their tongues met. He was the only man she’d ever kissed. And she didn’t feel deprived by that fact. No other man could kiss her like this, she was certain. No other man could make her feel hot and achy and itchy and wonderful all at once.

  Leo pulled her closer, the warmth of his body sinking into her flesh. He tilted her head back to give him better access, one hand cupping her jaw while the other slid to her waist. The touch of his fingers burned into her, through the fabric of her shirt and jacket.

  He was her Kryptonite, weakening her until she couldn’t resist.

  “I’ve missed this,” he said. “Missed you.”

  “Leo, I—”

  He kissed her again, and she lost whatever she wanted to say. But her mind raced ahead, took her back to last night, when she’d first seen him walking out of the Leonidas Group headquarters building. He hadn’t seemed to miss her at all then. He’d been so utterly self-assured when he’d strolled out of that building with a woman on his arm.

  She pushed against his chest, lightly but firmly, and he leaned back, gazing at her through heavy-lidded eyes. Sensuality was as natural to him as breathing, she thought. She wanted to pull him back to her, forget her confused thoughts and lose herself in the promise those dark eyes made to her.

  But she couldn’t. “Last night, you were with Donna. If I hadn’t come along ….”

  He blew out a frustrated breath. And then he looked down his fine nose at her. “You do realize that I am quite capable of going without sex for more than a day or so, right? Perhaps even weeks at a time. Being seen with a woman does not equate to having gone to bed with that woman.”

  She felt a stab of guilt. Once more, she was accusing him of thinking with his penis. A tiny, jealous—yes, jealous—corner of her insisted it must be true. He was Leo Jackson, lover of women, serial breaker of hearts.

  “But you were planning on it.”

  “Probably,” he said unapologetically. “But not for another week or two at least. Perhaps longer.”

  Anna sniffed, both chastened and irritated at once. “Then I’m sorry I ruined your plans.”

  Leo smiled, a sharp predatory smile that made a tingle start in her toes and work its way deep into her core.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’ve a new plan I like much, much better.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE next few days were a whirlwind of appointments and appearances. Photographers had started to show up whenever Leo and Anna appeared in public together. He’d told her to expect it, but she still cringed every time. Inwardly, of course. Outwardly, she smiled and posed and tried to look ecstatically happy.

  The headlines screamed at her each morning: Jilted Bride of Santina’s Crown Prince in Torrid Love Affair with Notorious Playboy; “I Had No Idea Anna Was in Love with Leo Jackson,” Shocked Friend Says; Love Blooms Between Marooned Couple—But Were They Really Marooned, Or Was it Planned?; Crown Prince Alessandro Calls Anna—Come Back to Me, He Begs. And the worst one of all: How Long Will Lucky Leo Last This Time?

  Anna crumpled the morning tabloids and made a noise of disgust. He looked at her over the cup of coffee he’d poured from the silver service sitting nearby.

  “It’s ridiculous how they make these things up!”

  “Surely you aren’t surprised.”

  She ran a hand over the back of her neck, rubbed absently. “No, of course not. But it infuriates me anyway. You’d think they have nothing better to do.”

  “You did insist,” he said. Yes, she had insisted on seeing the papers. When she’d sent the order to the front desk originally, Leo had come barreling in soon after, grumbling at her that it wasn’t a good idea. She would get upset and that couldn’t be good for the baby.

  When she’d pointed out that she’d be more upset not knowing, he’d relented, albeit reluctantly.

  Now, Leo got to his feet and came over to where she stood near the window, looking out over Hyde Park. The sun was shining today, and people strolled along the sidewalks and sat on park benches. Pigeons congregated around a man throwing something onto the ground. A red double-decker bus glided by on the street below, the top open and filled with tourists craning their necks and aiming their cameras.

  Leo’s hands settled on the back of her neck, and then he began to rub. Anna bit her lip to stop the moan that wanted to escape. It felt so good to have his hands on her. She wasn’t quite sure if it was soothing in the way he intended it to be or titillating.

  “You’re tense,” he murmured against her ear, and an electrical zap of energy shot down her spine, gathering in her core. Leo hadn’t touched her since that kiss in the car, other than perfunctory touches for the cameras. She’d thought then that he’d wanted to make love to her again, that he intended to seduce her into his bed. It had excited her and frightened her at the same time.

  But he’d done nothing since, and she’d been humming with frustration. It was better this way, she told herself. Better because this marriage would be temporary. Leo must have decided it, too, because he’d not pursued the issue when surely he must have known how easy it would be to send her over the edge. She was a mass of sensation waiting to happen. A collection of tinder anticipating the match.

  “I keep expecting something worse,” she said, her skin tingling wherever he touched. His fingers were sure as he kneaded her shoulders and neck.

  “Something worse than Lucky Leo?” She could hear the smile in his voice, but she wasn’t nearly as amused as he was.

  Finally, something to focus on that would distract her from the sensation of his hands on her skin. “That is a rather disgusting name, considering how you earned it.”

  “By bedding six lingerie models simultaneously.”

  “It’s not funny, Leo,” she said, turning to look up at him.

  His smile didn’t fade. “Perhaps not. But what you desperately want to know, sweet Anna, is if it’s true.”

  She dropped her gaze from his, a jealous fire flaring to life in her belly. Jealous? “You couldn’t be more wrong,” she said haughtily. “It’s a vile exaggeration anyway.”

  His laugh was soft, deep, pulling at something elemental inside her. “Slightly. There were only four of them.”

  Anna stepped away from him, certain her cheeks were flaming scarlet by now. Leo with four women. Leo, naked and s
urrounded by four women. She didn’t want to imagine it. A hot, sharp dagger of anger pierced through her heart. She wanted to choke someone. Four someones. “I said I didn’t want to know.”

  “I’m only telling you the truth, Anna. Why keep secrets when we’re about to be married?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. Because this isn’t real! Because it’s a game to you! The words swelled against the back of her throat, aching to escape, making it hard to breathe for the barest of moments. But she swallowed them back, refusing to let them out. “I don’t see any need to confess deep dark secrets. This is an arrangement, not a true marriage.”

  He was still smiling, but she could see the hard glint in his eyes. As if she’d angered him. Or insulted him.

  “Yes, of course. How could I have forgotten? You only need me to help you get through this difficulty, and then it’s back to Amanti where you can play the proper lady. Though perhaps a slightly tarnished one, since you will have been married to me.”

  A throb of guilt beat a new tempo in her veins. “That’s not fair,” she said. “You twist my meaning.”

  The hard look was still there. “Do I? From the first, you’ve impressed upon me the importance of your reputation. Your status as the ex-bride-to-be of a future king.” He tsked. “This must be so embarrassing for you, Anna. You’ve lain down with a mongrel and come home with fleas.”

  She flung away from him. He twisted everything she said, made her seem so awful and shallow when she was only trying to be fair to them both. To who they were as people. They didn’t know each other well, it was true, but she knew what he was. What he’d always been. He’d never denied it, and now he was angry with her over it?

  “You act so wounded! But tell me the truth, Leo—did you really want to be a husband and father? Is that what you see yourself doing? Because if so, why didn’t you marry Jessica Monroe?”

  He didn’t react, and yet she knew the name had affected him. The air had changed between them when she’d uttered the name of the woman he’d been linked with in L.A. Grown heavier, thicker, tenser. She waited for him to speak, both fearing and needing to hear his answer.

  When he did, his voice was cool. Detached. Clinical. “Jessica and I came to a mutual decision.”

  But Anna wasn’t letting it go that easily. “And then she married some other man six months later and adopted a baby.”

  “We had different goals.”

  “Is that what it’s called?” Bitterness churned in her belly. How could he not admit the truth when it was right there for everyone to see? He’d lived his life in front of the tabloids, sleeping with and casting off women with the kind of frequency with which most men changed their shirts. Leo Jackson and family man were not words ever used together in the same breath.

  He’d practically said as much to her on the island.

  “My relationship with Jessica Monroe has nothing to do with my relationship with you,” he said tightly. She had the distinct impression that he was leashing some deep anger—or hurt?—within him. It gave her pause, but only for a moment. “We are getting married, and we have a child on the way.”

  “I’ve not forgotten it, I assure you,” she said crisply, the blood beating in her temples, her throat. Something was going on between them that she didn’t quite understand, and it infuriated her. Bothered her. How could she engage in conversation with him and still not quite know what either of them meant by the words they said? It was like going through a carnival fun house and not knowing what to expect around the next corner. “But I still don’t believe it’s your first choice of occupation.”

  He was going out of his mind with desire for her. Leo was still furious at their conversation of that morning, but he’d shaken it off as best he could and had taken her out to look at potential homes. He’d been putting the task on the back burner since he’d been so busy lately, but once Anna had arrived with her proposal of marriage, there was no getting past the fact it was high time to find a place and buy it.

  Now, they were touring a two-level exclusive flat in a period building in Knightsbridge. Anna had grilled the estate agent on the amenities and led the way through the five-hundred-square-meter property. The agent had finally retired to the walkway out front to smoke a cigarette and make phone calls while he waited for them to finish.

  Anna stood in the center of one of the upper bedrooms, staring at nothing that Leo could see. He took a moment to admire her form. She was, as always, buttoned up tight in a cream sweater set and gray skirt with, surprisingly, platform heels that made her legs so long and sexy. The pearls were a fixture around her neck, of course. She was playing with them, as she always did when she was upset or nervous or simply concentrating on something.

  Her long dark hair was loose today, and he ached to thrust his fingers into the heavy mass as he took her body for his pleasure. Anna never wore her hair loose. The effect was about to kill him. He’d never been as achingly aroused as he had been for the past hour, watching her bare legs and round bottom as he followed her through the flat.

  There was also, he had to admit, a simmering brew of despair and anger mixed in with the arousal. She was convinced he had nothing to offer in the way of being a husband or father. He wasn’t sure he did either, but it was damned de-pressing to think of her leaving him once the baby was born. He’d been thinking about it all morning, and found himself surprisingly affected by it. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to rage and howl and expend a great deal of energy by doing something that required him to push himself to physical extremes.

  Base-jumping. Mountain climbing. Extreme hiking across the Sahara.

  Barring that, he wanted to lock Anna up and never let her out of his sight.

  It was true that he didn’t know the first thing about babies. They terrified him. So tiny and delicate and dependent on adults to take care of their needs. What if he was terrible at it? What if letting Anna go back to Amanti to raise their baby was the best choice for all of them?

  And yet the thought of Anna and his child leaving him to his previous life of empty sex and meaningless relationships made him feel strangely forlorn. What if Anna met someone else and married him? That man would become his child’s father, and Leo would have no business in their lives whatsoever.

  Something deep and elemental inside him responded with a resounding, No!

  “I’m not sure, Leo,” Anna finally said, cutting into his thoughts as she turned to him in the empty room. Her voice echoed down from the high ceilings.

  “Not sure of what?”

  “It’s gorgeous, but I’m not sure it’s you. I see you in a penthouse somewhere, with sleek modern furnishings and a city view.”

  A flicker of annoyance slid across his soul. “It’s not about me, Anna. It’s about us. You will have to live here, too.”

  She dropped her gaze from his, and a current of anger and misery flared to life inside him, scorching him with the force of a thousand burning suns. And yet, could he blame her for thinking what she did? For thinking he was incapable of being what she wanted and needed him to be?

  He’d made a second career out of being the kind of man women didn’t say no to. He’d never met a woman he couldn’t charm straight out of her knickers, and he’d never hidden that fact. Nor had he hidden the fact he wasn’t the settling-down type. He’d never thought he would want to. The idea that he might after all gave him pause.

  “Jessica wanted to get married. I didn’t.”

  Anna’s head snapped up, her jade-green eyes wide. He didn’t know why he’d said it since it confirmed everything she thought about him, but he felt compelled to continue. He loved it when she looked at him, he realized. There was a little kick, right beneath his ribs, every time.

  “She had a grown daughter, but she wanted a new baby. The roles in Hollywood were drying up for an actress her age. I believed she was latching on to the idea of marriage and a baby as a new challenge in life. She believed I was wrong. The split was mutual.”

&
nbsp; “Did you love her?” she asked, and he sensed that it cost her something to ask it.

  Leo blew out a breath. The answer would do him no credit, but he wouldn’t lie. “No.”

  She blinked. “No? Just like that, no?”

  “If I’d loved her, would I have let her go? Or would I have done everything in my power to make her happy?”

  “I see,” she said.

  He didn’t think she saw anything. He and Jessica were similar in personality. Neither of them demanded anything from the other. They’d had a good time together. Love had never entered into the equation, for either one of them.

  But then the arguments had begun. Small at first, escalating later as Jessica Monroe, once prized for her face and body, had started to weary of the fight for new roles. He’d never quite understood, as she remained to this day one of the sexiest women he’d ever known. But Hollywood was fickle, and that fickleness had driven Jessica to want more from him than he was willing to give.

  Ironic that he now stood here with a woman who was not only pregnant with his child, but that he’d also agreed to marry.

  He closed the distance between them suddenly. She took a step back, but he caught her and pulled her to him. He didn’t know why he had to hold her, but he did. He needed to feel her soft, warm body against his. Needed to know she was real, that their baby was real. He’d never quite known his place in life, never understood where he fit in in the Jackson family. He was the odd man out, the one who’d come in from the outside and tried to belong. Well, maybe Angel knew that feeling, too, but it was different—her father hadn’t denied she was his and refused to have anything to do with her. She wasn’t a Jackson by blood. He was, though he wasn’t sure it had ever meant anything to him.

  Anna put her hands on his chest as he caught her close, her head tilting back. She did not try to escape. In fact, he felt a tremor run through her. That faint vibration that let him know she was not unaffected. That she still wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Oh, she’d been good at pretending she did not—but only when he didn’t touch her. When he touched her, he knew. And he wasn’t prepared to show her any mercy. Not any longer.