Free Main Attraction by Anna J. Evans Page B

with not a hint of emotion in his bright blue eyes. “It was nice meeting you.”
    That was it? Nice meeting you? That was all he had to say? “Right…the pleasure was all mine,” Edna said with a tight smile, somehow managing to keep it together until the door closed behind him. She listened as the men loaded into the elevator, and all too quickly the parlor was as silent as a Sunday morning.
    He was gone. Just like that.
    Edna felt her face start to crumple, but struggled to keep from losing it completely. She hadn’t cried either of the two times she’d had a gun held on her tonight, she wasn’t going to cry a second time over Big Baldy. So he’d made her feel more alive than she had in two years, more treasured than she had ever felt in the arms of her first husband. Those feelings had obviously been nothing but the product of deception. He was a man looking to entertain himself, kill some time, nothing more.
    “No. He listened, he really did,” Edna murmured to herself, something in her refusing to believe she’d been that horribly mistaken.
    He’d told her about his son, worried about her safety and looked at her as if she were the most sexy, desirable woman in the world. Surely she hadn’t imagined all that. But whether she had imagined it or not, he was most certainly gone now, and she was most assuredly alone. Frank had left, taking with him one regulation slave loincloth and a piece of her heart.

Chapter Six
    Three days later…

    Edna sighed and shifted uncomfortably on the throne-like chair that dominated the corner of her new sitting room. The space was easily twice the size of her entire house, and only part of the large castle suite she now occupied. Every amenity was provided, and she had wanted for nothing since her arrival—from food to entertainment to a full-body rubdown from the royal masseuse.
    There was no doubt that the digs and service were fantastic, but Edna just wanted to be back in her own home.
    It had been two years since she’d had the luxury of puttering about her house in the daytime. She’d always had to sleep through the morning and early afternoon to be rested for her Wicked Stepmothering. Now that all of that was behind her, she couldn’t imagine anything more fabulous than hanging out in her breakfast nook with a cup of coffee and the morning paper and watching the sunlight move across the wall.
    Instead, she was here, a pampered captive in the guest quarters of the castle while the media frenzied around her house and former place of business. She’d had no choice but to accept Cindy’s kind offer of accommodation for her own protection. The sensation caused by the revelation that King Robert had been in love with his stepmother-in-law and planned to keep her captive as his sex slave was more than the average reporter could handle and still keep their manners about them.
    Edna had nearly been trampled on her way from her front door to the car Cindy sent to take her to the castle. She hadn’t ventured out since and was beginning to feel the opposite of agoraphobic—whatever that was called.
    But it wasn’t all bad. Cindy had been remarkably sweet the past few days, since Parliament had decided not only not to prosecute, but to allow her to remain as ruler
    until her son or daughter was old enough to rule. Come to find out, Cindy was already four months pregnant, a condition that no doubt contributed to her despair at finding out her husband was an insane lech. Still, it had also contributed to Parliament’s decision to be lenient with her stepdaughter, so Edna figured the situation evened itself out rather well.
    Impending motherhood had also seemed to increase Cindy’s empathy for Edna’s position. They’d had a few long, mother-daughter-type talks and had actually come to a tentative reconciliation. Cindy had apologized for her horrible behavior, and Edna had finally been able to convince her how much she had loved her father, and that marrying him hadn’t