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“I’ve just remembered,” she said, proud that she managed to sound so cold and detached. Professional. “My appointment isn’t for tomorrow after all. I keep getting my days mixed up. It’s for the next day.”
“Is that so?” Leo said, his gaze slipping over her once more. There was heat and promise in that voice, and a hint of possession, as well. It infuriated her—and intrigued her.
“If you wish to tour Amanti,” she said crisply, already partially regretting the impulse that had her choosing him over tomorrow’s papers, “we can leave around nine in the morning.”
“Nine?” he mocked. “I doubt I’ll have slept off tonight’s debaucheries by then.”
Anna felt her ears going hot. She refused to picture any debauchery. “Nine o’clock, Mr. Jackson. Or not at all.”
“You drive a hard bargain, darling,” he drawled, as if he weren’t in the least bit dangerous to her sense of well-being. “But we’ll do it your way.”
Before she knew what he was about, he caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Her skin tingled as his warm breath washed over her, his beautiful lips skimming so lightly over her flesh. She couldn’t suppress the small shudder that racked her body or the ache of sensation that made her crave more of his touch.
Leo Jackson looked up, his gaze sharp. Too sharp. As if he’d seen through to the core of her and knew what she’d been thinking. That devilish grin was back as his coffee-colored eyes glittered with heat. “Tomorrow, darling,” he said. “I look forward to it.”
Anna pulled her hand away, tried very hard to ignore the pulsing throb in her belly, between her legs. “I’m not your darling, Mr. Jackson.”
He winked. “Not yet. But let’s see what tomorrow brings, shall we?”
After a restless night, Anna rose early the next morning, and then showered and dressed with care. She was the tourist ambassador to Amanti, not a woman going on a date, so she chose a fashionable skirt and blazer. She paired the gray suit with a red silk camisole—her one nod to color—her pearls, and gray suede pumps. She wrapped her long dark hair in a neat knot and secured it with pins. Then she slipped on mascara and lip gloss before walking over to the cheval glass and studying her reflection from head to toe.
She looked professional, competent. Precisely the way she wanted to appear. She absolutely did not care whether Leo Jackson found her attractive or not.
Liar.
Anna frowned at herself. She wasn’t unattractive; she was professional. And she intended to stay that way. If she could control nothing else about these chaotic past few weeks, she could at least control her image. And this was the image she wanted to project. Serenity in the face of turmoil. Grace under fire. A calm port in the storm.
Anna patted her hair one last time before she whirled away from the mirror, found her handbag and cell phone, checked her calendar to make sure she’d taken care of everything and left her room at precisely twenty to nine. Her room was two floors up from Leo Jackson’s room, but first she took an elevator down to the dining room and grabbed a quick cup of coffee and a whole-grain muffin before going back up to Leo’s floor. At three minutes to nine, she knocked on his door.
Nothing happened. Anna frowned as she listened for movement behind the door. She checked her watch, studied the sweep of the second hand across the mother-of-pearl face. At nine o’clock precisely, she knocked again. “Mr. Jackson?” she said, pressing her face close to the door in order not to wake any of the other late-sleeping guests in nearby rooms. “Are you in there?”
Two minutes later, when she’d knocked yet again—louder this time, because she was getting very annoyed—the door jerked open.
Anna’s stomach flipped at the sight of Leo Jackson in all his bad-boy glory. Heavens above, why did this man have to be so compelling? She should feel nothing for him but contempt. Not only had his family wrecked her perfect life, but he was also not the sort of man a proper lady should ever get involved with.
Yet heat bloomed in her cheeks as she thought of his comment last night about debauchery. Because that’s precisely what he looked like—as if he’d spent the night in some lucky woman’s bed, debauching her thoroughly.
Before she could control herself, Anna thought that she wanted to be debauched. Thoroughly. Repeatedly.
If she could have slapped her palms to her cheeks in horror, she would have done so. She most definitely did not want to be debauched—and certainly not by this rogue.
“Hello, darling,” Leo said casually, his sensual lips twisting in that arrogant grin that had featured so prominently in her thoughts last night while she’d tossed and turned in her bed. And yet, in the moment before he’d spoken, she’d sensed something behind that playboy demeanor, something tightly leashed in and controlled.
A sleek, dangerous beast on a tether.
“Mr. Jackson,” she replied coolly, hoping he couldn’t see the thrum of her pulse in her throat. “We had an appointment at nine, I believe.”
He ran a hand through his dark hair. His eyes gleamed with interest as his gaze slipped over her. He had a day’s growth of beard on his face—and she’d never seen anything sexier in her life.
Neither, it seemed, had some other woman. Or, heaven forbid, women. Yes, she definitely could see Leo Jackson taking more than one woman home with him at a time.
Oh, dear… The images in her head were definitely not safe for public consumption.
But he stood in the door, looking so dissolute and sexy in his tuxedo from last night she couldn’t form a coherent thought as she studied him. The beast was concealed once more, so that she found herself wondering if she’d imagined it. But she had not, she was certain. He was smooth and magnificent—and not quite what he seemed to be at first glance.
His jacket hung open and his shirt was unbuttoned. The tie and studs were gone, probably tucked into a pocket. A bright smudge of pink was smeared across the pristine white of his collar. Lipstick, she realized with a jolt. And not the color Graziana Ricci had been wearing.
She was positive, looking at him, that he’d not spent the night in his own bed. In fact, she was pretty sure he hadn’t slept at all. She tried not to think of what he’d been doing instead—or whom he’d been doing it with.
While she had lain awake thinking about this man, he’d forgotten all about her. Clearly, as his lack of readiness and his delay in answering the door indicated. She only hoped her cheeks weren’t scarlet. What if he had a woman in there right now?
“I—I can come back later,” she blurted. “If you’re, um, busy.”
“Not at all,” he said smoothly, wrapping a hand around her elbow and pulling her into the room. She caught her heel and stumbled to a halt in the small foyer of his suite, her hands automatically bracing against his chest as she nearly lost her balance.
“Sorry about that, darling,” he said, his arms enveloping her. His broad hands were on her back, her waist, searing into her like a flaming-hot brand. Her heart skittered. She had an impression of a sleeping lion rearing its head and sniffing the air for prey.
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all,” she bit out, and then stifled a gasp when she realized what she’d said. No matter how she felt about Leo Jackson, it wasn’t permissible to be rude. She’d spent a lifetime learning the art of diplomacy, a skill she would have needed as Queen of Santina one day. And she’d just failed miserably, hadn’t she?
No wonder Alex had left her. Except, how was Allegra Jackson any better suited to be a queen, considering how scandalously her family had behaved last night?
If appearances were any indication, this particular Jackson had behaved very badly indeed.
Leo laughed, the fingers of one hand caressing the furrow of her spine through her clothing. Oh, if he kept doing that… Heat and light flared inside her, slid through her limbs until she wanted to mold herself to him like a second skin. His body was hard against hers, hot. It disconcerted her, and thrilled her. How could she react to this man so soon after Alex had turned her world upside down?
“Since you’ve landed in my arms, perhaps I’m not sorry,” he said.
No man had ever held her so close. Not even Alex. She’d learned to dance with men, to conduct herself with poise and grace, and she’d been in a man’s embrace before. But not this kind of embrace. This hot, needy, sensual embrace that was, on the surface, not improper at all.
Except for how it made her feel. Oh, yes, she felt quite improper when Leo Jackson had his arms around her. As if she wanted to feel skin against skin, mouth against mouth. As if she wanted to burn up in his arms and see what it felt like.
Ridiculous, since she didn’t even know him. The stress of the past few weeks had obviously affected her brain.
Anna disentangled herself from his embrace and took a step back. She tugged on the bottom of her jacket to straighten it. Then she patted her hair, happy that no stray wisps had escaped the confinement of her knot.
Leo shook his head as he studied her with an expression of bemusement on his face. “Afraid of what you might feel if you let yourself go, darling?”
Fire burst through her, making twin spots rise in her cheeks. “Stop calling me darling,” she said firmly. “And stop trying to seduce me, Mr. Jackson. It won’t work.”
She wouldn’t let it work.
The gleam in his eyes was predatory. Feral. Exciting.
Dangerous.
“Really? Not feeling the least bit angry about your fiancé and my sister? Not aching to put it all behind you with a few pleasurable hours?”
Anna lifted her chin. He’d seen right through her, hadn’t he? “Actually, that sounds quite lovely. But first I’ll need to find someone to spend those hours with.”
“I’m wounded,” he said lightly, though something in his expression made her take a step back.
“I doubt that,” she replied crisply. “You’ll have moved on to the next woman on your list without a moment’s regret, I’m certain. We are all interchangeable to you.”
Was that irritation flaring in his dark eyes? Anger?
Or pain? It shocked her enough that she couldn’t decide. But then it was gone so quickly she began to wonder if she’d imagined it. Did she want him to have a conscience so it would make this strange attraction to him more bearable?
Probably.
Still, her outburst went against everything she’d ever been taught. She was out of her depth lately, stressed and furious and hurt. She had to govern herself better. “Forget I said that. It was rude.”
“And you can’t stand being rude, can you, Anna?” His voice caressed her name exactly as she’d imagined it last night, while lying awake in her bed.
“It’s not the way I was raised,” she said primly. Then she glanced at her watch, because the air felt suddenly thick and hot and she didn’t know what else to do. “We’re running late, Mr. Jackson. Our boat is at the dock. We were supposed to leave five minutes ago.”
“Heaven forbid we are late. But you can cancel the boat. The tour will go much faster if we take my plane.”
Anna blinked. “Plane? Amanti is only twenty-five miles away by sea. The boat will have us there in under an hour, and then we can hire a car to take us around the island.”
His expression was patient but firm. “I need to see the coast. We’ll fly around the island first, and then land and have a tour, yes?”
Anna reached for her pearls, comforting herself with the solid feel of them between her fingers. He was overriding all her plans. It was too much like what had happened to her life lately, and it made her nervous. Uncertain. Damn, how she hated that feeling.
“But I’ve already arranged things,” she said firmly, attempting to regain control of the situation. “There is no need for you to put yourself out, Mr. Jackson.”
He reached for her again, put his hands on either side of her shoulders and bent until his gorgeous eyes were on a level with hers. Her heart flipped. “Arrangements can be changed, Anna. And you really need to call me Leo.”
She darted her tongue over her lower lip. “I’d prefer to keep this professional, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind,” he said, his eyes darkening.
Anna tried not to let the warm, spicy scent of him wrap around her senses. But he was too close, and he smelled so good, and her stomach was knotting with tension at his proximity. He confused her. She ached in ways she never had before, and she wanted things she’d once looked upon with quiet acceptance. She’d expected to be intimate with Alex, of course. She hadn’t expected to find out she wanted that intimacy with a kind of earthy sensuality that was completely foreign to her nature.
But not with Alex.
With this man. With Leo.
“Keep looking at me that way, and we won’t go anywhere,” he murmured, his voice a lovely growl in his throat. She imagined him growling against her skin, his body twining intimately with hers, and swallowed hard.
It was shocking to be thinking these thoughts. And so very, very titillating.
She might be a virgin, but she wasn’t stupid. She was modern enough to have read a few books on sex. She’d even managed to watch a video, the memory of which had her heart hurtling forward. The way the man had put his head between the woman’s legs and—
“Anna,” Leo groaned. “Stop.”
Anna shook herself. What was wrong with her? Baiting a lion in his den? Was she insane?
“Really, I have no idea what you’re talking about Mr.—Leo. You have a very dirty mind.”
His sharp bark of laughter was not quite what she expected. He let her go abruptly, and her skin tingled through her clothes where he’d so recently touched her. “I think if this tour stands a chance of getting off the ground, I’d better change.”
“That would be wise,” she said primly.
She stood in the foyer, uncertain whether to follow or stay where she was. In the end, she decided to stay. She could hear him moving around, hear a soft curse as a door opened and shut again. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, blushed anew at her heightened color. Leo Jackson brought out the worst in her.
She was just beginning to worry about how long she’d been standing there when he reappeared. A jolt of surprise went through her at the sight of him. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but his casual attire had not quite been it.
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.
