The Greek's Unwilling Bride Read Free

last thing she wanted to do to the people she loved.
    So this morning, she’d dressed with that in mind. Instead of the pale pink Chanel suit she’d bought for the occasion, she’d put on a periwinkle blue silk dress that was a couple of years old. Instead of doing her hair in the style that she’d made famous—whisked back and knotted loosely on the crown, with sexy little curls tumbling down her neck—she’d simply run a brush through it and let it fall naturally around her shoulders. She hadn’t put on any jewelry and she’d even omitted the touch of lip gloss and mascara that was the only makeup she wore except when she was on a runway or in front of a camera.
    She’d even left early, catching a train at Penn Station that was supposed to have gotten her into Stratham a good hour before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. But the train had broken down in New Haven and Laurel had started to look for a taxi when the station public address system announced that there’d be a new train coming along to pick up the stranded passengers in just a few minutes. The clerk at the ticket counter confirmed it, and said the train would be lots faster than a taxi.
    And so she’d waited, for almost half an hour, only to find that it wasn’t a train that had been sent to pick up the passengers at all. It was a bus and, of course, it had taken longer than the train ever would have, longer than a taxi would have, too, had she taken one when the train had first ground to a halt. The icing on the cake had come when they’d finally reached Stratham and for endless minutes, there hadn’t been a cab in sight.
    â€œAunt Laurel?”
    Laurel looked up. Dawn and her handsome young groom had reached her row of pews.
    â€œBaby,” she said, fixing a bright smile to her face as she reached out and gave the girl a quick hug.
    â€œThat was some entrance,” Dawn said, laughing.
    â€œOh, Dawn, I’m so sorry about—”
    Too late. The bridal couple was already moving past her, toward the now-open doors and the steps that led down from the church.
    Laurel winced. Dawn had been teasing, she knew, but Lord, if she could only go back and redo that awful entrance.
    As it was, she’d stood outside the little church after the cab had dropped her off, trying to decide which was preferable, coming in late or missing the ceremony, until she’d decided that missing the ceremony was far worse. So she’d carefully cracked the doors open, only to have the wind pull them from her hands, and the next thing she’d known she’d been standing stage-center, with every eye in the place on her.
    Including his. That man. That awful, smug-faced, egotistical man.
    Was he Nicholas’s guardian? Well, former guardian. Damian Skouras, wasn’t that the name? That had to be him, considering where he’d been standing.
    One look, and she’d known everything she needed to know about Damian Skouras. Unfortunately she knew the type well. He had the kind of looks women went crazy for: wide shoulders, narrow waist, a hard body and a handsome face with eyes that seemed to blaze like blue flame against his olive skin. His hair swept back from his face like the waves on a midnight sea, and a tiny gold stud glittered in one ear.
    Looks and money, both, Laurel thought bitterly. It wasn’t just the Armani dinner jacket and black trousers draped down those long, muscled legs that had told her so, it was the way he held himself, with careless, masculine arrogance. It was also the way he’d looked at her, as if she were a new toy, all gift-wrapped and served up for his pleasure. His smile had been polite but his eyes had said it all.
    â€œBaby,” those eyes said, “I’d like to peel off that dress and see what’s underneath.”
    Not in this lifetime, Laurel thought coldly.
    She was tired of it, sick of it, if the truth were told. The world was filled with