Read Online The Virgin's Proposition by Anne McAllister - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t hang on to him. She stayed where she was in the bed, but she watched his every move as he dressed. This night was all she was going to have—she didn’t want to so much as blink.
    He didn’t look at her or speak until he had finished dressing and was slipping on his shoes. Then his gaze lifted and his eyes met hers.
    “You…should maybe rethink this marriage you’re planning, ” he said.
    She didn’t answer. Didn’t want to spoil the present by thinking about the future. Silently she got out of bed and wrapped herself in the dressing gown she’d left hanging over the chair. Then she crossed the room to him and took his hands in hers.
    “Thank you,” she said again, refusing to even acknowledge his comment. He opened his mouth as if he would say something else, then shut it firmly and shook his head. His gaze was steely as he met hers.
    “It’s your life,” he said at last.
    Anny nodded, made herself smile. “Yes.”
    She didn’t say anything else. She needed him to go while she still had the composure she’d promised herself she would hang on to. It was only one night, she told herself.
    It wasn’t, she assured herself, as if she was in love with him.
    That would teach him, Demetrios thought when he got back to his hotel. He flung himself over onto his back and stared at the hotel room ceiling. Though what he’d learned this evening he wasn’t exactly sure.
    Probably that women were the most confusing difficult contrary people on earth.
    He should have known that already, having been married to Lissa. But Anny had seemed totally different. Sane, for one thing.
    And yet all the while they’d been sitting there and he’d been thinking she was simply enjoying dinner and his company and having a good time she’d been thinking about inviting him into her bed.
    It boggled the mind.
    Still, when she explained, he’d understood. God knew sometimes over the past three years he’d yearned for the days when he’d believed all things were possible.
    He didn’t believe it anymore, of course. He wasn’t looking for a relationship again. He’d done that with Lissa. He’d been the poster boy for idealism in those days—and look where it had got him.
    No more. Never again.
    From here on out he wanted nothing more than casual encounters. No hopes. No dreams. No promises of happily ever after.
    Exactly what he’d had tonight with Anny.
    Who was getting married, for God’s sake! Talk about mind-boggling. But he supposed she was more of a realist than he had been. Though why the hell a beautiful, intelligent young woman was marrying some elderly widower was beyond him.
    And why was the elderly widower marrying her?
    Stupid question. Why wouldn’t any man—who still believed in marriage—want to marry a bright fresh beautiful woman like Anny?
    But if he had been the marrying kind and engaged to her, Demetrios knew damned well he wouldn’t leave her feeling lukewarm and desperate enough to invite another man into her bed!
    He was sure she didn’t do that very often. Or ever.
    For a minute there, when he’d entered her, he’d thought she was a virgin. But that didn’t make sense.
    He wished he knew what was going on.
    Was her family destitute? Did they owe money to this man? Was Anny being bartered for their debts?
    It certainly didn’t look as if they had money worries from the apartment she was living in. Of course she’d told him at dinnerthat she was staying in the flat of her late mother’s best friend, Anny’s own godmother, a woman she called Tante Isabelle. While Isabelle was in Hong Kong doing something for a bank, she’d lent Anny her apartment for the year.
    So why wasn’t Tante Isabelle, who obviously cared enough for Anny to provide her a place to live, objecting to her goddaughter’s loveless marriage?
    Did she even know it was a loveless marriage?
    Where was Anny’s father? He was still living, Demetrios knew that. Anny had mentioned him in the present tense. He was married