we never used a condom.”
“Because we were newlyweds. We were hoping to have children, we both wanted a big family, but it’s different now. We’re separated. Divorcing. A baby would be disastrous, absolutely the worst thing possible—”
“Actually, I can think of a few things worse than a baby,” he interrupted, getting off the bed and reaching for his trousers. He stepped into one leg and then the other before zipping them closed. “Like famine. Disease. Pestilence. Or someone swindling billions of dollars—”
“Obviously I didn’t mean that a baby was a tragedy,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest to hide the fact that she was trembling. Just moments ago she’d been so relaxed, so happy, and now she felt absolutely shell-shocked. How was it possible to swing from bliss to hell in thirty seconds flat? But then, wasn’t that how it had always been with them?
“No, I think you did,” he countered. “It’s always about you, and what’s good for you—”
“That’s not true.”
“Absolutely true. You’re so caught up in what you want and need that there is no room in this relationship for two people. There certainly was never room for me.”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t be serious, Drakon. You’re the most controlling person I’ve ever met. You controlled everything in our marriage, including me—”
“Do I look like I’m in control?” he demanded tautly, dark color washing the strong, hard planes of his face.
He was breathing unsteadily, and her gaze swept over him, from his piercing gaze to the high color in his cheekbones to his firm full mouth, and she thought he looked incredible. Beautiful. Powerful. Her very own mythic Greek god. But that was the problem. He was too beautiful, too powerful. She had no perspective around him. Would throw herself in the path of danger just to be close to him.
Good God. How self-destructive was that?
Before she could speak, she heard the distinctive hum of a helicopter.
“Rowan,” Drakon said, crossing to the balcony and stepping outside to watch the helicopter move across the sky. “He’ll have news about your father.”
“Then I’d better shower and dress.”
MORGAN REFUSED TO think about what had just happened in her bed, unable to go there at all, and instead focused on taking a very fast shower before drying off and changing into a simple A-line dress in white linen with blue piping that Drakon had shipped over from the Athens house with the rest of the wardrobe.
In the steamy marble bathroom, she ran a brush through her long hair before drawing it back into a sleek ponytail and headed for her door, careful to keep her gaze averted from the bed’s tousled sheets and duvet.
The maid would remake the bed while she was gone, and probably change the sheets, and Morgan was glad. She didn’t want to remember or reflect on what had just changed there. It shouldn’t have happened. It was a terrible mistake.
She took the stairs quickly, overwhelmed by emotion—worry and hope for her father, longing for Drakon, as well as regret. Now that they’d made love once, would he expect her to tumble back into bed later tonight?
And what if he didn’t want to make love again? What if that was the last time? How would she feel?
In some ways that was the worst thought of all.
It wasn’t the right way to end things. Couldn’t be their last time. Their last time needed to be different. Needed more, not less. Needed more emotion, more time, more skin, more love …
Love.
She still loved Drakon, didn’t she? Morgan’s eyes stung, knowing she always would love him, too. Saying goodbye to him would rip her heart out. She only hoped it’d be less destructive than it had been the first time. Could only hope she’d remember the pain was just grief … that the pain would eventually, one day, subside.
But she wouldn’t go there, either. Not yet. She was still here with him, still feeling so alive with him. Better to stay focused on the moment, and deal with the future when it came.
Reaching the bottom stair she discovered one of Drakon’s staff was waiting for her. “Mrs. Xanthis, Mr. Xanthis is waiting for you in the terrace sunroom,” the maid said.
Morgan thanked her and headed down the final flight of stairs to the lower level, the terrace level.
The sunroom ran the length of the villa and had formerly been a ballroom in the nineteenth century. The ballroom’s original gilt ceiling, the six sets of double glass doors and the grand Venetian glass chandeliers remained, but the grand space was filled now with gorgeous rugs and comfortable furniture places and potted palms and miniature citrus trees. It was one of the lightest, brightest rooms in the villa and almost always smelled of citrus blossoms.
Entering the former ballroom, Morgan spotted Drakon and another man standing in the middle of the enormous room, talking in front of a grouping of couches and chairs.
They both turned and looked at her as she entered the room, but Morgan only had eyes for Drakon. Just looking at him made her insides flip, and her pulse leap.
She needed him, wanted him, loved him, far too much.
Her heart raced and her stomach hurt as she crossed the ballroom, her gaze drinking in Drakon, her footsteps muffled by the plush Persian rugs scattered across the marble floor.
He looked amazing … like Drakon, but not like Drakon in that soft gray knit shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and lovingly molded to his muscular chest, outlining every hard, sinewy muscle with a pair of jeans. In America they called shirts like the one he was wearing Henleys. They’d been work shirts, worn by farmers and firemen and lumberjacks, not tycoons and millionaires and it boggled her mind that Drakon would wear such a casual shirt, although from the look of the fabric and the cut, it wasn’t an inexpensive one—but it suited him.
He looked relaxed … and warm. So warm. So absolutely not cold, or controlled. And part of her suddenly wondered, if he had ever been cold, or if she’d just come to think of him that way as they grew apart in those last few months of their marriage?
Which led to another question—had he ever been that much in control, too? Or had she turned him into something he wasn’t? Her imagination making him into an intimidating and controlling man because she felt so out of control?
God, she hoped not. But there was no time to mull over the past. She’d reached Drakon’s side and felt another electric jolt as his gaze met hers and held. She couldn’t look away from the warmth in his amber eyes. Part of him still burned and it made her want to burn with him. Madness, she told herself, don’t go there, don’t lose yourself, and yet the air hummed with heat and desire.
How could she not respond to him?
How could she not want to be close to him when he was so fiercely alive?
“It’s
