Copeland was in trouble.
She’d lost her home, her company, her friends, her reputation. She was a social outcast, and she was broke. She was overdrawn in her checking account and she’d maxed out every credit card she owned.
Drakon hung up from his last call and tossed the phone onto the bed.
Dammit.
Dammit.
He was so angry with her….
And so angry with her rarified world for turning on her.
She had lost everything. She hadn’t been exaggerating.
Morgan was standing in the living room by the enormous wall of windows when Drakon appeared, almost an hour after she’d left him in his bedroom. He’d dressed once again in the off white cashmere V-neck sweater he’d worn earlier, his legs long in the pressed khaki trousers, the sweater smooth over his muscular chest. He’d always had an amazing body, and his perfect build allowed him to wear anything and now with the beard gone she could see his face again and she couldn’t look away.
She couldn’t call him beautiful, his features were so strong, and his coloring so dark, but he had a sensuality and vitality about him that fascinated her, captivated her. “How long had you been growing that beard?” she asked.
“A long time.”
“Years?”
“I’m not here to discuss my beard,” he said curtly, crossing the room, walking toward her. “While upstairs I did some research, made a few phone calls, and you did sell your loft. Along with your boutique in SoHo.”
Energy crackled around him and Morgan felt her insides jump, tumble. He was so physical, always had been, and the closer he got, the more the tension shifted, growing, building, changing, binding them together the way it always had. The way it always did. “I had to,” she said breathlessly, “it was the only way to come up with the money.”
“You should have told me immediately that you’d given the Somali pirates ransom money and that they’d failed to release your father.”
“I thought you might not have helped me, if you knew….” Her voice faded as Drakon closed the distance between them. He was so alive, so electric, she could almost see little sparks shooting off him. Her heart pounded. Her tummy did another nervous, panicked flip.
She shouldn’t have sent away the helicopter. She should have gone while she could. Now it was too late to run. Too late to save herself, and so she stared at him, waited for him, feeling the energy, his energy, that dizzying combination of warmth and heat, light and sparks. This was inevitable. He was inevitable. She could run and run and run, but part of her knew she’d never escape him. She’d run before and yet here she was. Right back where they’d honeymooned, Villa Angelica.
She’d known that coming here, to him, would change everything. Would change her.
It always did.
It already had.
Her legs trembled beneath her. Her heart pounded. Even now, after all these years, she felt almost sick with awareness, need. This chemistry and energy between them was so overwhelming. So consuming. She didn’t understand it, and she’d wanted to understand it, if only to help her exorcise him from her heart and her mind.
But all the counselors and doctors and therapists in the world hadn’t erased this … him.
Why was Drakon so alive? Why was he more real to her than any other man she’d ever met? After Drakon, after loving Drakon, there could be no one else … he made it impossible for her to even look at anyone else.
He’d reached her, was standing before her, his gaze fierce, intense, as it traveled across her face, making her feel so bare, and naked. Heat bloomed in her skin, blood surging from his close inspection.
“What did you do, Morgan?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve sold everything,” he added harshly. “You have nothing and even if you get your father back to the United States, you’ll still have nothing.”
“Not true,” she said, locking her knees, afraid she’d collapse, overwhelmed by emotion and memories, overwhelmed by him. She’d been up for two days straight. Hadn’t eaten more than a mouthful in that time. She couldn’t, knowing she would soon be here, with him again. “I’d have peace of mind.”
“Peace of mind?” he demanded. “How can you have peace of mind when you have no home?”
He could mock her, because he didn’t know what it was like to lose one’s mind. He didn’t know that after leaving him, she’d ended up in the hospital and had remained there for far too long. It had been the lowest point in her life, and by far, the darkest part. But she didn’t want to think about McLean Hospital now, that was the past, and she had to live in the present, had to stay focused on what was important, like her father. “I did what I had to do.”
“You sacrificed your future for your father’s, and he doesn’t have a future. Your father—if alive, if released—will be going to prison for the rest of his life. But what will you do while he’s in his comfortable, minimum security prison cell, getting three square meals a day? Where will you sleep? What will you eat? How will you get by?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You are so brave and yet foolhardy. Do you ever look before you leap?”
She flashed to Vienna and their wedding and the four weeks of honeymoon, remembering the intense love and need, the hot brilliant desire that had consumed her night and day. She hated to be away from him, hated to wake up without him, hated to breathe without him.
She’d lost herself completely in him. And no, she hadn’t looked, hadn’t analyzed, hadn’t imagined anything beyond that moment when she’d married him and became his.
“No,” she answered huskily, lips curving and heart aching. “I just leap, Drakon. Leap and hope I can fly.”
If she’d hoped to provoke him, she’d failed. His expression was impassive and he studied her for a long moment from beneath his thick black lashes. “How long has it been since you’ve spoken to your father?”
“I actually haven’t ever spoken to him. My mother did, and just that first day, when they called her to say they had him. Mother summoned us, and told us what had happened, and what the pirates wanted for a ransom.”
“How long did she speak to your father?”
“Not long. Just a few words, not much more than that.”
“What did he say to her?”
“That his yacht had been seized, his captain killed and he had been abducted, and then the pirates got back on the phone, told her their demands and hung up.”
“Has anyone spoken with your father since?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“They
