permission. I’m free to make my own decisions where my time is concerned.”
“Good, I’ll send someone for you around one o’clock, if that’s good for you. We’ll make it a late luncheon after you see my problem child. That way you’ll have the whole morning to work here.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes skittering away from his. “I do want to make sure I finish up at the palace first.”
Alexandra kicked herself all the way back to the ballroom. What had possessed her to accept Phillip Kinrowan’s invitation to his estate? Sheer hunkiness, that was it! From the moment he was announced at the ball, she decided he was the handsomest man she’d ever laid eyes on.
And, on top of his looks, he owned a stable full of horses.
From the time she’d been a little girl, she’d adored the creatures. Unfortunately, they didn’t always return her affection—unless you could count as tokens of endearment all those bruises and fractures she’d suffered during lessons when she was a schoolgirl. Among the Connellys’ social set, proper English riding lessons were a must. As crucial an element of her education as knowing how to read the New York Stock Exchange quotes in the Chicago Sun-Times financial section, according to Grant Connelly, her father. She didn’t hold her failures against the horses. Under most circumstances, she hadn’t done badly at all. It was just that once in a while she seemed to develop a slippery bottom, and there she’d be on the ground, studying clouds. She could never be described as a polished horsewoman.
So, what had possessed her to tell Kinrowan that she was a trainer? A childhood fantasy, perhaps? It might have been all right if he hadn’t immediately asked for her help. Then her pride hadn’t let her admit the fib. She’d have to show up at his place and pretend to be knowledgeable. If she kept the visit short, Alexandra reasoned, she should be all right. Surely she knew enough about horses to fake her way through an hour or two of horse-related conversation.
Alexandra shook her head, lifted her skirts and clomped in her favorite boots up the wide marble steps from the garden to the patio. Well, it would be a kick anyway. And a man who obviously had no interest in her other than professionally, and probably had tons more money than Daddy, couldn’t possibly hold the usual threat men had been to her. What the hell… Maybe an afternoon with Phillip Kinrowan would help her forget. Help her start to wash away the terrible pain, and stop thinking about the reason she’d run away from Chicago, from her friends and the most bitter disappointment of a young woman’s life.
The next morning the castle was quiet. Her brother, Daniel, and his wife, Erin, were breakfasting late on the veranda. She approached in her trademark Doc Martens, khaki hiking shorts and an oversized jersey. “You’d think after all that food last night, I wouldn’t be hungry,” she commented, sitting down and in one motion reaching for a plate of pastries.
Erin smiled at her. “I think we burned the banquet food off with all that dancing. I saw you on the floor with a dozen different men.”
Alex shrugged. “It was an okay party, I guess.”
“Leave it to Alex to understate any situation,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “A ball held in my honor at a castle, and my little sister says it was an okay party.” He laughed affectionately.
“Well, it was,” she objected, giving his cheek a sisterly pinch. “I mean, it isn’t as if Daddy hasn’t invited half of Chicago to celebrate every new business coup he makes.”
“I seem to recall one little girl’s birthday party that included pony rides and a half-dozen clowns hired from Ringling Brothers.”
Daniel was making fun of her and she hated it. If he was implying that she was in any way spoiled, he was wrong. It was just that when you grew up in a family like the Connellys it was hard to know how to live other than in luxury. Money had never been an issue, until she’d become an adult. Then she’d learned its power as well as its curses.
For the last several years all she’d known, in fact, were the curses. They’d kept her from feeling satisfied with herself, happy with her friends. More than anything, money had gotten in the way of her finding love. She might have grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth but she’d always believed in the basic honesty of people, particularly two people who cared deeply for each other. Until the day before her wedding, she’d thought that Robert loved her, because he had said he did and he’d acted as if he did. She’d even been able to ignore her brother Justin’s warnings about Robert a few days before. But then she’d overheard her fiancé’s conversation with Jessy Weintraub, her maid of honor. And her world had fallen apart.
“He’s kidding, right?” Erin asked. “Ringling Brothers’ clowns?”
“I’m afraid not. Our father likes to do things in a big way, in case you haven’t yet noticed. Money has never been known to hold Grant Connelly back.” But it had held her back. If she couldn’t find love, the very least she should have been able to find was herself. She hadn’t succeeded. She still wondered who Alexandra Connelly really was. Why had she been put on this planet? What was the special gift she had been meant to share with the world?
Or was she just another rich girl destined to marry wisely, chair committees for charities…and wish she were someone else?
So far, all she had discovered was that she was good at attracting men. Like Robert Marsh. Men who were intelligent, good-looking, aggressive at both work and play. In short, every woman’s dream. Every woman but her. Because these men all saw the same thing in her—a fast road toward wealth and success. When your father was the famous Grant Connelly, any man who married you was guaranteed a place in Connelly Corporation and a niche in a family that liked to share its prosperity.
For a moment, there was a vision of white silk and a beaded bodice, of a veil that had covered her face to hide tears on the day before her wedding. It had been during the final fitting that she’d walked in on her fiancé and best friend. The rest was a blur as she flung off shreds of priceless fabric, sobbing as she told herself she would fly to the Virgin Islands, to China, or to the most remote regions of Africa that very night. And, no, she would not be marrying Robert. Ever!
She had left him, if not literally at the altar, only hours away from it.
Bitterness and anger seethed within her again, subsiding only as she sipped a cool tropical juice drink. She should have seen the signs, should have learned over the years. The world was full of Robert Marshes, and the only way to have a safe relationship with a man was, ironically, by lying to him.
Thus she would be a horse trainer if that was what she chose to be for a few hours.
Phillip Kinrowan’s estate perched on a cliff overlooking the blue-green Tyrrhenian Sea. The day was bright and warm. The stone had baked in the sun all morning and felt smooth and pleasantly hot against the soles of Alex’s bare feet as she climbed. She squinted up the steep face of the cliff, then looked back down to the beach where the motor launch had left her, its driver pointing toward the ancient stairway. Above her she could see nothing but blue sky. The smell of wild jasmine and portulaca was almost overpowering, a heady brew when mixed with the brine of the ocean lapping at the rocks beneath her.
At last her head rose above the edge of the cliff and a long, low white structure came into view, set back from the rocks by a carpet of manicured emerald grass. She drew in a slow breath. “Oh, my…”
It wasn’t the largest house she’d ever seen, but it had character and charm and something that didn’t come from one or two generations of luck and money. This place had old-world history
