The Man Behind the Scars(2)

Angel wished, not for the first time, that she'd gone on to university.  That she'd dedicated herself to an education, a career-something. But  she'd been so very pretty at sixteen, blessed with her mother's infamous  blagging skills and the body to back them up. She'd been confident that  she could make her own way in the world, and she had, one way or  another. She'd talked her way into more jobs than she could count since  then, none of them long-lasting, but she'd always told herself that that  was how she liked it. No ties. Nothing that could hold her back should  she need to move on. She'd been muse and model to a fashion designer,  had run her own retail shop for a year or two, and could usually pick up  some kind of modeling job or another in a pinch. It was always a  struggle, but she paid her rent and her bills, and often had a little  bit left over, as well.                       
       
           



       

Not fifty thousand quid, of course. Not anything even remotely close to that.

Her stomach heaved, and she pressed her fist against her belly as if  that would settle it, by force. By her will alone. What was she supposed  to do? Declare bankruptcy? Have her mother arrested for identity fraud?  However angry she was, however hurt, again, she couldn't quite see  taking

either route. One was humiliating and unfair. The other was unthinkable.

Right, she thought then, her usual cool and practical nature taking over  at last, shoving the unfamiliar lashings of self-pity aside. Enough  whingeing, Angel. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity tonight. Pull  yourself together and use it!

Angel helped herself to a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, took  a restorative sip and squared her shoulders. She decided to ignore the  faint trembling in her hands. She was Angel Tilson. She was tough-she'd  had to be, the whole of her life. She did not break at the first sign of  adversity-or even at fifty thousand pounds' worth of signs. She did not  recognize defeat. As Bobby had always said-while throwing the odd drink  down his throat, but the sentiment was the same regardless-defeat was  nothing more than an opportunity to succeed the next time. And the  glorious thing about having no options was that she had absolutely no  choice but to succeed.

"So," she murmured to herself, fiercely, "I bloody well will."

Her reasons for going ahead and playing this game might have been  desperate, but that didn't change the fact that it was a game she was  very good at playing. How could she not be, she thought with something  like dark humor. It was in her genes.

She ran her free hand over the curve of her hip, making sure her dress  was in place, sticking like glue to the tight, toned curves she'd  inherited directly from her mother. She could not quite bring herself to  be grateful to Chantelle for that little gift. Not quite. Not tonight.  The dress was strapless, short and black as sin-and pretended to be  decorous while instead showing off every mouthwatering inch of what was,  she knew, her only weapon and greatest asset. Her body.

Nearby, a gaunt-faced older man with centuries of breeding stamped into  his sunken bones and his so-proper-it-hurt wife stared at her as if  she'd committed some hideous breach of etiquette right there in front of  them. Anything was possible, of course, but Angel knew she'd  successfully kept a low profile here at Allegra's party-so outside her  realm of experience was it to find herself in a palace. The well-bred  couple averted their eyes in apparent horror, and Angel bit back a  laugh.

She'd leave the truly appalling behavior to the rest of the Jackson  family, as she suspected her half sister and stepsiblings, all seven  gathered together under this much-too-elegant roof, were more than up to  the task. It was, in fact, a Jackson family tradition to stir up  scandal wherever they went.

Her half sister, Izzy, had recently been involved in a highly publicized  engagement that had ended so dramatically and so openly-at the altar,  no less, flashbulbs popping-that Angel had cynically assumed it was all  part of her younger sister's increasingly desperate bid for attention  from the less and less interested press. Izzy was as bad as their  mother, who was no doubt also in this huge crowd somewhere right now,  flinging her mane of blonde hair about like a woman half her age,  inevitably dressed in something scandalous and up to who knew what. They  could even be up to their usual mischief together-a prospect Angel  couldn't bear to think about any further.

She, on the other hand, had to be just well-behaved enough to catch the  right sort of eye-and just badly behaved enough to make sure that eye  didn't stray. When the gaunt older man snuck an appreciative second look  at her figure behind his wife's stiff and scandalized back, Angel  smiled in satisfaction. The game was on.

She prowled around the edge of the great gala event, fortified with  another glass of the remarkably good champagne, scanning the party for  any possibilities. After some consideration and a long look at an  obviously wealthy-looking sort with an unfortunate nose that could, in a  pinch, double as a bridge over the English Channel, she admitted that  she was, regrettably, not that desperate. Not yet.

Looking around, she also automatically excluded any men with women  already hanging off of them, or even standing too close to them, as she  didn't have the time or inclination to compete, and anyway, she wasn't  at all interested in someone else's husband.

She might have descended to following in her mother's footsteps and  becoming a shameless gold digger, she thought piously, but she did have  some standards.                       
       
           



       

She took care to avoid any of the Jackson family, Chantelle and Izzy  included-or perhaps especially-as she moved through the crowd. Those she  was particularly close to-like the bride-to-be Allegra herself or Ben,  the eldest Jackson sibling and as close to a big brother as Angel was  likely to get-she was determined to avoid at all costs. She couldn't  handle any sort of show of concern, not from the people she actually  considered near enough to family. She didn't want either of them to ask  her how she was doing, because she might accidentally let the awful  truth slip out in all its ugliness, and that would hardly put her in the  right frame of mind to catch a husband, would it?

Not that she had any idea what frame of mind that was meant to be, she  thought wryly, slipping behind another pillar to avoid a tight scrum of  what, to her untrained eye, looked like a pack of highly disapproving  priests. Or possibly bankers.

And that was when she saw him.

He was lurking-there was no better word for it-almost in the shadows of  the next pillar, all by himself, presenting Angel with a view of his  commanding profile. He was … magnificent. That was also the best word for  it. For him. She paused for a moment, letting her eyes travel all over  him. His shoulders were wide and strong, and his torso looked like  packed steel beneath a suit that should have been elegant, but on his  lean, rugged frame was instead … something else. Something that whispered  of great power, ruthlessly and not altogether seamlessly contained. He  stood with his feet apart and his hands thrust into the pockets of his  trousers, and she got the impression that there was something almost  belligerent in that stance, something profoundly dangerous.

Every hair on her body seemed to stand on end.

There was just something about him, Angel thought unsteadily as another  kind of thunder seemed to roll through her then, making her breath seem  harder to catch than it should have been. She couldn't seem to look  away. Maybe it was his thick dark hair, too long to be strictly correct  and at distinct and intriguing odds with the conservative suit he wore.  Maybe it was the brooding, considering way he looked out over the  ballroom, as if he saw nothing at all to catch his interest, nothing to  combat whatever it was he carried inside of him, like a deep shadow  within yet almost visible to the naked eye. Maybe it was that lean jaw,  and the grim mouth that Angel suddenly felt was some kind of challenge,  though she couldn't have said why.

Whatever else this man was, she thought then, anticipation and  adrenaline coursing through her, making her whole body seem to hum into  alertness, he was a candidate. She moved toward him, pleased to note  that the closer she got, the more impressive he was. There was a certain  watchful stillness to him that she felt like an echo beneath her ribs.  She wasn't at all surprised when he turned his head to pin her with a  cold, dark stare while she was still several feet away-and she got the  sudden and distinct impression that he'd sensed her approach from the  start, from the moment she'd laid eyes on him. As if he was  preternaturally aware of everything that happened around him.