different circumstances…
As it was, even a hint of the sexual interest he felt for her, which had been growing steadily throughout the evening and intensifying to a physical ache when he’d placed his hand against her nape earlier, would be completely rejected.
Drakon couldn’t remember the last time—if ever—a woman had piqued his sexual interest as much as Gemini did. If he were completely honest with himself she had begun to do so from the first moment he’d looked at her on the security monitor this morning, as she’d restlessly paced the room she had been confined to. Markos—damn him—had been quite correct in surmising as much when Drakon had announced it was his intention to talk to Gemini himself. His cousin had also known exactly which buttons to push to get a reaction out of Drakon when he had come up to the apartment and interrupted their conversation.
Drakon had been as surprised as Markos had looked when he had announced that Gemini was to be having dinner with him this evening. Surprised by the need he had felt to reassure her that he was not, nor had he ever been, involved in an affair with her stepmother. And not a little alarmed that the circumstances of their meeting meant he was the very last man Gemini would ever consider becoming sexually involved with.
Over the years Drakon had become accustomed to having any woman he bothered to take an interest in. The cynical part of him knew those conquests were due as much to his extreme wealth as to any personal attraction he may or may not possess, but he already knew Gemini well enough to know that neither his wealth nor the way he looked would be enough to tempt her into a purely physical relationship with him. She was a woman who would require…more…
Which left him precisely where?
Attracted—deeply attracted—to a woman he knew there was absolutely no possibility would ever return that attraction, let alone act upon it!
‘You do have the money, but?’ he prompted shrewdly.
Gemini shot him a frown. ‘What makes you think there’s a but?’
He gave a derisive smile. ‘Isn’t there?’
Yes, there was. And it was a big one. One that Gemini had desperately been trying to overcome this past month without success…
She sighed. ‘I told you earlier that my parents set up a considerable trust fund for me. The interest has been paid to me on a yearly basis since I reached the age of eighteen, and the capital amount is to be made over to me on my thirtieth birthday.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ve been trying for the past month to see if I can break that trust and have the capital now, so that I can buy Bartholomew House.’
‘And?’
She scowled. ‘My father’s lawyers assure me the trust was set up in such a way as to be unbreakable. Of course if Daddy had made the new will, as he promised he would…!’ She gave a frustrated shake of her head. ‘But obviously he didn’t, so I’m stuck with not being able to get at the bulk of my money until my thirtieth birthday.’
Dark brows rose over those coal black eyes. ‘Which means you will not receive the capital for…what…? Another three years or so?’
‘Two years and four months, to be exact,’ Gemini acknowledged grudgingly.
Drakon gave a humourless smile. ‘By all means let us be exact—’ He broke off, a perplexed frown appearing between his eyes. ‘That would make your birthday some time in October?’
She nodded warily. ‘The twenty-second.’
‘But that is not the month for Gemini.’
Her wariness proved merited! ‘No…’
‘I had assumed your unusual name derived from your birth sign?’
Gemini forced a bright and totally insincere smile to her lips. ‘Obviously you assumed wrong.’
Drakon studied her through narrowed eyes, noting that smile and the dull flatness of those sea-green eyes…‘You are being evasive, Gemini.’
‘Am I?’
‘You know that you are.’
Her expression was pained as she began to pace, slender and long-legged and extremely graceful, her hair a silvery curtain about her shoulders in the moonlight reflecting through the windows behind her.
‘I don’t see what my birthday has do with the offer I’ve made you—’
‘You have not made me any offer yet—nor do I wish to hear it until we have finished our present conversation,’ Drakon assured her decisively as she would have gone on. ‘Gemini is the sign of the twins…’ he murmured slowly.
The frown deepened between those sea-green eyes. ‘Most people would have realised by now—and accepted—that I would obviously prefer not to talk about this subject any more!’ she muttered crossly.
He nodded. ‘I have realised.’
‘But you continued anyway?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ she demanded.
Because, painful as he could see this subject was to her, Drakon wanted—needed—to know!
She had told him so much about herself already—when her birthday was, what she did for a living, her love for her parents, her disharmonious relationship with her stepmother. And it wasn’t enough. Drakon found that he desired to know all that there was to know about Gemini Bartholomew. Almost as much as he desired to make love to her…
‘I’m a twin,’ she revealed suddenly, her eyes glittering brightly with unshed tears as she turned away. ‘I had a brother,’ she continued quietly. ‘He only lived for three hours after he was born, and my mother chose my name deliberately—not out of the sadness of losing him, but out of the joy of knowing him even for that short amount of time. She didn’t want any of us to ever forget him—’ Gemini broke off abruptly as her voice choked with tears. The silken curtain of her hair fell forward to hide the depth of emotion so clearly revealed in the rawness of her voice.
Drakon gave a self-disgusted snort and moved swiftly across the room. He took Gemini into his arms, resting her head against his shoulder, and moved his arms firmly about the slenderness of her waist, her closeness allowing him to breathe in the soft perfume of her hair. ‘I am so sorry, Gemini,’ he muttered. ‘You were right. I should not have pushed you in the way I did.’
‘No, it’s okay.’ She shook her head. ‘I—It’s just that since Daddy died there’s no one left who knew about Gabriel—that was my brother’s name. Gabriel. Gemini and Gabriel.’ She drew in a ragged breath. ‘It’s strange, because I never really knew him, but I’ve always felt as if…as if I were somehow incomplete…as if a part of me were missing.’ She looked up to give a tearful smile. ‘Weird, huh?’
Not weird at all when one considered that Gabriel had been her twin—that the two of them had shared their mother’s womb for nine months at the very beginning of their lives…
It also explained that sadness Drakon had recognised earlier in the beauty of Gemini’s eyes when he had mentioned there being no son to inherit her father’s business.
