Read Online The Playboy and the Single Mum (Vintage Love Book 2) by Alexia Adams - Free Book Online

fabric between his long fingers. Her body tingled, waiting for his touch. Maybe she should just skip the story and kiss him.
    “I told you a bit about my parents. What I didn’t tell you was that my mother had a complete breakdown after the divorce. She was a model when she met my father. Not a huge success but pretty enough—tall and elegant with long, blond hair. I’m sure you know the type.”
    He nodded, his eyes roaming her face. If he was looking for some resemblance to her mother, he wouldn’t find it. Unfortunately, she’d inherited more of her father’s genes.
    “All she had were her looks and her marriage, which was really her ticket to an easy life. Papa had money. She liked money. When she caught my father cheating, she figured her looks weren’t enough anymore to keep a man, so she let herself go. Actually, letting herself go is a misnomer; it was more like she threw herself off a cliff.”
    “But she had you.”
    “I wasn’t enough either. My mother was very narcissistic. She never really understood my father and the pressure he was under, and I don’t think she ever tried. It was all about the glamour and the parties for her. Anyway, after it was over, she sank into a deep depression and dragged me down with her. She ate constantly and insisted that I join her. Remember I said my father last saw me on my sixteenth birthday? Well, what he saw was a morbidly obese teenager who could barely get off the sofa to greet him.”
    She searched Daniel’s face, expecting to see disgust. She saw compassion instead. He put his drink down and took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “No one looking at you now would ever think you were once overweight.”
    “Thanks. But I know I’m still a little heavy. Certainly I’m not like the majority of women you come across on the circuit.” Within a week she’d be standing next to some of them. It was going to be obvious.
    “Can I tell you something the majority of women don’t seem to realize? Most men prefer women with substance. When I’m with a skinny woman, I worry that if I hold her too tight, she’ll snap and I’ll be left holding the pieces.” He raised his arms as though dangling two sections of woman. “Excuse me, I seem to have broken this one. Terribly sorry.”
    She smiled at his attempt to humor her.
    He drew a circle on the back of her hand with his index finger, and she repressed the shiver of delight. “When did you lose the excess weight?”
    Finishing her drink, she put the glass down on the table next to Daniel’s. “As soon as I went away to college and was away from my mother, I could make my own eating choices and I became healthier. I started to exercise and gradually got slimmer. But my body still carries the evidence. I have masses of stretch marks, and although I’ve had one excess skin removal surgery, I’ve lost more weight since and have saggy bits. My skin’s a bit crepey…”
    She checked again for revulsion on his face but saw none. Instead he stood and began unbuttoning his shirt. Okay, not the reaction she was expecting, but she was fine with it. More than fine. He tossed his shirt onto the sofa and pointed at a long, jagged scar near his shoulder. The firelight danced on his skin, and her fingers itched to join the party.
    “I smashed my clavicle in a racing accident when I was fifteen. The bone came right through the skin. And here”—he took her hand and ran her fingers over a bump on his side—“I broke a rib luging down the stairs on the cook’s baking sheets when I was seven. I never told Grand-Papa I was injured, so it healed with a bump. I have others.”
    She wasn’t quite sure what his point was; she was too mesmerized by the feel of his warm skin under her fingers. He took her hand in his again and pulled her to her feet and into his arms, his eyes searching hers as she raised her face. “What I’m trying to say”—his voice was deep and husky—“is that my scars are due to