‘Do I make you nervous?’ Leo asked from behind her. She could hear the laughter in his voice. Deliberately she turned, dropping her hand away from her neck. Calm, cool.
‘Of course not,’ Anna said.
He winked. ‘Good. Because I’m afraid the jeans are next, darling. I can’t abide wet clothing.’
Anna held her breath as his long fingers flicked open the button of his jeans. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it. Her heart kicked up as his hip bones appeared, but she forgot all about it as the jeans slid down his long, strong legs, revealing tanned skin and acres of muscle. Anna couldn’t breathe.
Could this day be any more surreal? Just a few minutes ago, they’d been fully clothed strangers. And now they were marooned together and Leo was stripping out of his clothing.
‘Keep staring, darling, and the show is bound to get more interesting,’ Leo said, his voice a growling purr that slid over her nerve endings and made her shudder.
‘I’ve seen naked men before,’ she said with a sniff. ‘You can’t shock me.’
It was only a small lie.
THE
SANTINA CROWN
Royalty has never been so scandalous!
STOP PRESS—Crown Prince in shock marriage
The tabloid headlines… When HRH Crown Prince Alessandro of Santina proposes to paparazzi favourite Allegra Jackson it promises to be the social event of the decade —outrageous headlines guaranteed!
The salacious gossip… Mills & Boon invites you to rub shoulders with royalty, sheikhs and glamorous socialites. Step into the decadent playground of the world’s rich and famous…
THE SANTINA CROWN
THE PRICE OF ROYAL DUTY – Penny Jordan
THE SHEIKH’S HEIR – Sharon Kendrick
THE SCANDALOUS PRINCESS – Kate Hewitt
THE MAN BEHIND THE SCARS – Caitlin Crews
DEFYING THE PRINCE – Sarah Morgan
PRINCESS FROM THE SHADOWS – Maisey Yates
THE GIRL NOBODY WANTED – Lynn Raye Harris
PLAYING THE ROYAL GAME – Carol Marinelli
About the Author
LYNN RAYE HARRIS read her first Mills & Boon® romance when her grandmother carted home a box from a yard sale. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer then, but she definitely knew she wanted to marry a sheikh or a prince and live the glamorous life she read about in the pages. Instead, she married a military man and moved around the world. These days she makes her home in North Alabama, with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Writing for Mills & Boon is a dream come true. You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com.
THE
SANTINA CROWN
The Girl Nobody Wanted
Lynn Raye Harris
For my in-laws, Larry and Joyce Harris. Fifty
years together is quite an accomplishment. You
are proof that love can last forever. I’m so happy
you’re a part of my life, and I love you both.
CHAPTER ONE
ANNA CONSTANTINIDES stood at the edge of the gathered crowd and hoped the serene countenance she’d practiced before the mirror for the past week was holding up. Tonight was, without doubt, the most humiliating night of her life. Her fiancé—correction, former fiancé—was marrying another woman.
It would not have been so bad, perhaps, if her fiancé wasn’t Prince Alessandro, heir to the Santina throne. She should have been his queen, yet she was currently the jilted bride.
A fact the media took great delight in reporting.
Again and again and again. She’d hardly had a peaceful moment since Alex had dumped her so publicly and humiliatingly for another woman. He hadn’t even had the courtesy to inform her personally. No, he’d let her find out in the pages of the tabloids. Simply mortifying.
The pity she’d had to endure. The knowing looks—even, surprisingly, a hint of censure. As if it were her fault somehow. As if she were the one who’d been caught kissing another man while engaged to someone else, as Alex had been photographed with Allegra Jackson.
Anna wanted nothing less than to be at his engagement party tonight, but she’d had no choice. “Anna,” her mother had said when she’d refused, “you must. Protocol demands it.”
“I don’t give a damn about protocol,” she’d replied. And she hadn’t. Why, when she’d dedicated her life to protocol and duty and been so spectacularly punished for it?
Her mother took her hands. “Sweetheart, do it for me. Queen Zoe is my oldest and dearest friend. I know she would be disappointed if we were not there to support her.”
Support her? Anna had wanted to laugh, to shout, to rail against the unfairness of life—but she had not. Ultimately, she had done precisely what her mother asked because, for pity’s sake, she felt guilty.
Anna stiffened her spine as the king began to toast the happy couple. But she lifted her glass of champagne along with everyone else, and prepared to drink to the health and happiness of Alex and Allegra, the woman who’d turned her preordained life upside down.
At least, thank goodness, she could be certain there were no photographers present tonight. They would be waiting outside the palace gates, naturally, but for now she was safe.
And yet she still had to smile, had to pretend she wasn’t dying from embarrassment. She would have to endure the stories, the photos, the quotes from anonymous “friends” who claimed she was holding up well, or that she was fragile, or that her heart had shattered into a million pieces.
Anna sipped her champagne on cue. Only an hour more, and she was out of here. Back to the hotel where she would crawl into her bed and pull the covers over her head. The toast ended, and then the ensemble began to play a waltz. Anna slipped her barely touched glass onto a passing waiter’s tray and turned toward the doors to the terrace. If she could escape for just a few moments, she could endure the next hour with a great deal more fortitude.
“Anna,” a woman called. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Anna gritted her teeth and turned toward Graziana Ricci, the Amanti foreign minister’s wife. The woman sashayed toward her, a bright smile pasted on her cosmetically enhanced face. But it wasn’t Signora Ricci who captured Anna’s attention. It was the man beside her.
An Englishman, she assumed, as there were so many who had descended upon Santina recently.
He was tall, dressed in a bespoke tuxedo like nearly every other man in the room, and quite striking. Handsome, in a boyish way that somehow wasn’t boyish at all. No, it was devilish, as if he knew the temptation he offered merely by existing. Eyes the color of roast coffee glittered in a face that had been carved by Michelangelo. Somehow, the look in those eyes dared her to envision him naked atop a pedestal.
Anna shook herself. Perhaps he was a work of art, but he had not been carved by Michelangelo. How silly.
But he could have been. His face