Captured and Crowned by Janette Kenny Read Free Book Online

arousal should disgust her, but her body melted and bowed into him, wanting him.
    â€œYes, I’ve seen pictures of you in the tabloids, hard at work for Angyra,” she said, her chin lifted in defiance.
    Each time she’d seen him linked with a new woman she’d been bitten with unwanted jealousy. On its heels had always come anger for allowing herself to be seduced by him in the first place.
    The sensual mouth that had curled into a mesmerizing smile now pulled into a hard line. She knew she’d struck a nerve, and clearly one that was raw.
    He pushed away from her so quickly that she stumbled to catch her balance, but he didn’t notice. He was already halfway to the door.
    â€œAs I said, the wedding takes place in twelve days,” he said.
    â€œI’ll have the gown finished in one week.”
    He paused at the door and glanced back at her. “I will approve the design before you begin, understand?”
    She bobbed her head. “Of course.”
    He gave her another exacting perusal that had her skin tingling with awareness again. “I will send a servant up to assist you.”
    â€œI’d prefer my own assistants.”
    Again that slash of white teeth against dark skin, the cocky smile of a shark who had his quarry cornered. Or so he thought.
    â€œI am sure that you would,” he said. “But you will have to make do with what I provide for you.”
    Without waiting to see if she’d argue or concede, he swept from the room and closed the door in his wake. Such arrogance!
    How would she ever cope with this man? Being with him rattled her senses so much she’d forgotten to tell Yannis everything that she’d need.
    She reached for her phone—but it wasn’t there. How odd. She’d finished talking to Yannis and laid it there. She hadn’t touched it again the entire time Kristo had been in her room.
    Kristo! He must have taken it.
    She ran to the door he’d just left by, intending to go after him. The unmistakable click of the lock froze her in place. He’d locked her in. And that drove home the fact that she wasn’t simply the bride-to-be. She was a prisoner—not just in the palace but in this room.
    Kristo was firmly in control of her. He was smug in his belief that she could do nothing but blindly follow his orders, that she’d melt at his touch.
    And to her shame she had —every time. She’d never lost control around any man but him. Though she’d believed it had been a fluke, that she’d resist him if ever they met again, she now knew that wasn’t true.
    Her face flamed with anger and embarrassment. How could one man make her toss aside her convictions? How could he make her want him when she hated the very air he breathed?
    â€œDamn you!” she screamed, venting the anger inside her.
    But it wasn’t enough.
    So, because she could, because he’d left her no other recourse after treating her like a dockside trollop being passedfrom one brother to the next, she crossed to the lavish gown that had been made for her.
    Gregor had never sought her opinion. Neither had Kristo. Neither would ever have done so.
    She suffered one moment of indecision, for the gown had certainly cost a fortune. That was her. Always thinking of the other person’s feelings—in this case a designer she didn’t even know.
    She had always done what was required of her, from her papa to the King. And look where it had gotten her!
    Locked in a room in a palace and forced to marry a man who despised her.
    Quite simply, she looked at the stark white gown and saw red.
    With anger pounding through her veins in thick molten waves, she ripped the heavy overskirt off the gown. The mile-long train came next, followed by the grossly puffed sleeves.
    She yanked and ripped and reduced most of the gown to rags.
    It was petulant. Wasteful. Destructive. But it proved one thing.
    She, too, could only be pushed so far.
    Â 
    He