The Giannakis Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

just last week. Sorry there wasn’t time to send you an invitation….
    Hardening her heart, Brianna said, “No. Do you?”
    “Hell, yes,” he said grimly. “I wish I could have given Poppy a mother who cared. But there are some things money can’t buy.”
    “Are you always so uncomplimentary about my sister?”
    He flung another forthright gaze her way. “What do you want me to say, Brianna? That she was the best wife a man could wish for? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but there’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to preserve your illusions. The plain fact is, marrying Cecily was the second-biggest mistake of my life.”
    “What was the first?”
    “You were,” he said, surging to his feet and towering over her. “You and that damnable cruise to Crete. I should never—” He blew out an exasperated breath and raked his hand through his hair.
    “Well, don’t stop now. You never should have what?”
    “Never mind! I’ve already said too much.” He strode to the door and yanked it open. “Thank you again for coming. Get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
    And having stirred up memories of the most painful period of her life, he left her.
    So much for leaving the past in the past….
    They’d stopped in Athens en route to London and Vancouver; a two-day rest between flights only. At least, that was the original plan, until the invitation was hand delivered to their suite at the Grande Bretagne, the evening before they were scheduled to leave.
    In marked contrast to Brianna’s uninterested reaction, Cecily had almost fallen over herself with glee. “It sounds divine! I want us to accept, I really do! If you won’t go for yourself, do it for me.” She’d pinned on her most beguiling smile. “Please, Brianna? Pretty please?”
    “Honestly, Cecily, I’d rather not. This is the first break we’ve had in months, and I’m ready for a rest. But there’s no reason you can’t go, if you’re all that keen. We’re not joined at the hip.”
    “You know full well having both of us there is the coup they’re after. One of us doesn’t have the same cachet.”
    “For heaven’s sake, we’re professional models, not a circus act.”
    “And all you ever think about is work.” Cecily’s tone crossed the line from wheedling to whining. “If you’re so damned eager to take a rest, why can’t you do it floating around the Mediterranean on a luxury yacht? What’s so hard to take about that?”
    “We don’t know anyone else, for a start. These people so anxious to have us on board aren’t friends, Cecily, they’re collectors whose idea of scintillating dinner conversation is dropping the names of the celebrities they’ve rubbed shoulders with.”
    “And we’re highly collectible!”
    Brianna sighed. They’d argued this point more times than she cared to count, and were never going to agree. “We’re a couple of reasonably pretty women who look so much alike, most people can’t tell us apart. They might recognize our faces, but they haven’t a clue who or what we’re really about, and nor do they care. We’re nothing more than novelties.”
    “Maybe it’ll be different this time. Maybe these hosts enjoy meeting new people and showing them a good time.”
    Tired of riding the same pointless merry-go-round yet again, Brianna had welcomed the arrival of their manager, Carter Maguire, who occupied the suite next door. As usual after a successful assignment—and this last had been a triumph both on the runway and at the photography shoots—he’d brought a bottle of champagne. Her relief, though, was short-lived when he told them that he, too, was to join the yachting party. Was, in fact, largely responsible for the three of them having been invited in the first place.
    “Too bad you wasted your time,” Cecily informed him petulantly, when she heard. “Brianna’s refusing to go. Thinks I should put in a solo appearance.”
    “Out of the question.” Calmly he uncorked the