Read Engaged in Passion (A Bridal Favors Novella) for Free Online Page B

were very far away. "Then your father started coming to the house. We would wait in the hallway together. I showed him my drawings. He tweaked my nose and said I was sweet. He even helped me with my sums."
    "He does like to teach numbers."
    She nodded. "Until the day he stopped."
    Anthony frowned. "He stopped?"
    She shrugged. "I suppose I was too much work for him. I bothered him too much. I..." She sighed. "He stopped helping me. Papa was making him work harder and harder. Your father didn't have time to talk to me in the hallway. He would sit and sort through papers rather than help me with arithmetic. One day I gave him a picture I'd drawn, and he said it was quite lovely. But then he forgot it. He left it behind on the floor when he went into my father's study." She picked up her plate and used a finger to pick up a crumb and lick it off her finger. He watched, his mind entranced by the sight.
    "So he abandoned you. Just like your father, he played with you, then one day just stopped."
    She nodded. "I cried for days. I didn't understand why he didn't have time for me."
    "So you got angry. That's very understandable. You couldn't act out against your father, but you could strike back at mine."
    She grimaced. "I tormented him. Whenever he came to the house, I was ready with a dozen or more evil things to do to him. It's been years since I did anything awful to him, but it doesn't matter. He despises me."
    Anthony silently cursed his father, damning the man for not understanding a little girl's pain. Instead of trying to be a friend to a lonely child, his father had become yet one more person to toss Francine aside. It broke his heart.
    "Do you know my father's greatest failing?"
    She didn't answer, her eyes steady on the empty plate. So he leaned forward and gently lifted the thing away. He didn't dare touch her. He didn't have the right. But he could take away the empty plate just as a servant might.
    "My father is a simple man," he said. "Direct, honest, and brilliant with accounts. But his personality is somewhat coarse."
    She grimaced. "I tortured him. My father's most trusted secretary, and I—"
    "He is brilliant, but terrible with people. He has no understanding of why people act as they do."
    She frowned, lifting her gaze to his. Finally he could see the dark amber of her eyes. "But you understand?"
    "Some, I think. Thanks to my mother. She has taught me a great deal." He wanted so desperately to kiss her. To show her that she was lovable on every level. But that would be going much too far. So instead he spoke, trying to make his words express everything he felt. "None of this was your fault, Francine. You were a child in pain."
    "I cut up his scarf, Anthony. Into very little pieces."
    He smiled. "Shall I tell you a great secret? He hated that scarf."
    "No!" she gasped, her hand pressed to her mouth to cover her giggles.
    "Despised it. I'm sure he was grateful that you destroyed it for him."
    She shook her head, her expression falling. "He was very angry with me."
    "And I believe I am very angry with him for how he treated you." He sighed, then he looked around the room, seeing the lavishness of her life. He looked at the things that surrounded her but could never touch her the way a parent touched a child. How horrible her childhood had been. Certainly she had a wealthy home, but in terms of love, her life had been sadly impoverished. "Who are your friends, Francine? Whenever I see you, you are alone save for that kitten. Even at the party, you sat alone."
    She shrugged. "Who would sit with me? Servants shouldn't sit with the mistress. Papa is in his office, and Mama is out calling on her friends."
    "She doesn't take you with her?"
    Francine shook her head. "She takes me when there is a chance of an eligible gentleman, but mostly she visits her friends and leaves me here."
    "And what of your friends? Mrs. Wensley, who hosted the party? School friends?"
    "Papa said they were not helping find me an acceptable