Born to Be Wild Read Free Page B

turned her heavenly green eyes toward him. He was mesmerized, and he sure as hell wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing as the bubbling wine spilled, and continued to spill, over the rim, right down the front of her fancy green dress.
    Chip had yelled at him for his clumsiness, and Lauren had laughed in an effort to silence her husband-to-be. Max had apologized profusely, then made a bee-line out of the mansion, not stopping until he felt a gentle hand on his arm.
    “Thank you,” Lauren had said, her eyes suddenly warm and full of concern.
    “What are you thanking me for?” he’d bit out in anger and embarrassment.
    “For calming my nerves,” she’d said softly. “For giving me a good reason to laugh.” Her dress was soggy and she should have been enraged, but he saw only a hint of fear in her eyes, not fury.
    “Sorry about your dress,” he’d said, apologizing once again.
    “It doesn’t matter.” She stared at him for a moment, silent, still. He’d felt awkward standing there with his fingers itching to touch her, his mouth wanting to kiss her. If she’d been any other girl he would have done just that, but she was the Lauren Remington and he was just Max Wilde.
    She’d tilted her head and looked over her shoulder at the open door leading into the mansion. Slowly, she’d looked back at him, the nervousness still evident in her eyes, and asked, “Where are you going?”
    “As far away from here as I can get.”
    “I wish I could go with you,” she’d blurted out. “I wish—” She’d smiled weakly, kissed him hastily on the cheek, then turned around and ran, disappearing once more behind the marble walls that separated their worlds.
    All night long he’d thought about her words, her trepidation. He’d spent an entire evening working up the courage to rescue her from the marriage she’d seemed to dread, and then he’d shown up at her mansion the next morning, just in time to see her walking down the steps, a picture of perfection in shimmering white.
    Marching up the drive, he’d thrust a fistful of orchids toward her. “It’s not too late to run away with me.”
    The color seemed to drain from her face as her gaze trailed from the orchids, to the curious people gathering around her, to his eyes. A hesitant smile touched her lips. “Why would I want to run away? I’m getting married today... and... and I’ve never been happier.”
    “But—” The massive hand of a bodyguard or one of her other minions clamped down on his shoulder and dragged him away from Lauren as she lifted the hem of her gown and climbed into the limo.
    He’d made a fool of himself, and she’d punched a hole in his self-esteem. She’d probably made fools of a lot of men. Fortunately he’d gotten over that day a long time ago—or at least he thought he had. Thinking about it now made him remember the humiliation he’d felt with so many laughing eyes staring at him as her limousine drove away.
    He didn’t want to like the woman whose name and picture he’d seen plastered on the front of the tabloids too many times to count, but in spite of the blow to his ego, he couldn’t forget the anxiety that had been in her eyes that night. And he’d definitely heard the desperation in her voice over the phone today.
    He cursed the sense of chivalry that had made him want to help her again. He also cursed the ridiculous urge he had to see her, because he had the uncanny feeling that Miss Palm Beach was going to cause him endless amounts of grief.

Two
    Lauren stood in the center of the living room studying the all-white arrangement of anthurium, ginger, and Dendrobium orchids sitting on top of the pink and white marble mantel. “It’s perfect. Exactly what I want,” she told Mr. Friedrichs.
    “Are you positive you don’t want a splash of color? A little pink to match your furniture’s upholstery? A speck of yellow or purple?”
    “Oh, no,” Lauren said, walking across the room to look at the flowers from