because you need something, want something. It’s one thing if we’re making love and there’s pleasure involved, but there’s no pleasure in seeing you beg, especially to me. The very suggestion disgusts me.”
“And yet you seemed so charmed by the memory of me on my knees.”
“Because that was different. That was sex. This is …” He shook his head, features tight, full mouth thinned. For a moment he just breathed, and the silence stretched.
Morgan welcomed the silence. She needed it. Her mind was whirling, her insides churning. She felt sick, dizzy and off balance by the contradictions and the intensity and her own desperation.
He had to help her.
He had to.
If he didn’t, her father was forever lost to her.
“I’ve no desire to ever see my wife degrade herself,” Drakon added quietly, “not even on behalf of her father. It actually sickens me to think you’d do that for him—”
“He’s my father!”
“And he failed you! And it makes me physically ill that you’d beg for a man who refused to protect you and your sisters and your mother. A man is to provide for his family, not rob them blind.”
“How nice it must be, Drakon Xanthis, to live, untouched and superior, in your ivory tower.” Her voice deepened and her jaw ached and everything in her chest felt so raw and hot. “But I don’t have the luxury of having an ivory tower. I don’t have any luxuries anymore. Everything’s gone in my family, Drakon. The money, the security, the houses, the cars, the name … our reputation. And I can lose the lifestyle, it’s just a lifestyle. But I’ve lost far more than that. My family’s shattered. Broken. We live in chaos—”
She broke off, dragged in a breath, feeling wild and unhinged. But losing control with Drakon wouldn’t help her. It would hurt her. He didn’t like strong emotions. He pulled away when voices got louder, stronger, preferring calm, rational, unemotional conversation.
And, of course, that’s what she’d think about now. What Drakon wanted. How he liked things. How ironic that even after five years, she was still worrying about him, still turning herself inside out to please him, to be what he needed, to handle things the way he handled them.
What about her?
What about what she needed? What she wanted? What about her emotions or her comfort?
The back of her eyes burned and she jerked her chin higher. “Well, I’m sorry you don’t like seeing me like this, but this is who I am. Desperate. And I’m willing to take desperate measures to help my family. You don’t understand what it’s like for us. My family is in pain. Everyone is hurting, heartsick with guilt and shame and confusion—how could my father do what he did? How could he not know Amery wasn’t investing legitimately? How could he not protect his clients … his friends … his family? My sisters and brother—we can’t even see each other anymore, Drakon. We don’t speak to each other. We can’t handle the shame of it all. We’re outcasts now. Bottom feeders. Scum. So fine, stand there and mock me with your principles. I’m just trying to save what I can. Starting with my father’s life.”
“Your father isn’t worth it. But you are. Stop worrying about him, Morgan, and save yourself.”
“And how do I do that, Drakon? Have you any advice for me there?”
“Yes. Come home.”
“Home?”
“Yes, home to me—”
“You’re not home, Drakon. You were never home.”
She saw him flinch and she didn’t like it, but it was time he knew the truth. Time he heard the truth. “You asked me a little bit ago why I’d want to forget our sex life, and I’ll tell you. I don’t like remembering. It hurts remembering.”
“Why? It was good. No, it was great. We were unbelievable together—”
“Yes, yes, the sex was hot. And erotic. You were an incredibly skillful lover. You could make me come over and over, several times a day. But that’s all you gave me. Your name, a million-dollar diamond wedding ring and orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms. But there was no relationship, no communication, no connection. I didn’t marry you to just have sex. I married you to have a life, a home. Happiness. But after six months of being married to you, all I felt was empty, isolated and deeply unhappy.”
She held his gaze, glad she’d at last said what she’d wanted to say all those years ago, and yet fully aware that these revelations changed nothing. They were just the final nail in a coffin that had been needing to be sealed shut. “I was so unhappy I could barely function, and yet there you were, touching me, kissing me, making me come. I’d cry after I came. I’d cry because it hurt me so much that you could love my body and not love me.”
“I loved you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You can accuse me of being a bad husband, of being cold, of being insensitive, but don’t tell me how I felt, because I know how I felt. And I did love you. Maybe I didn’t say it often—”
“Or ever.”
“But I thought you knew.”
“Clearly, I didn’t.”
He stared at her from across the room, his features so hard they looked chiseled from stone. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said finally.
“Because you hated me talking to you.” Her throat ached and she swallowed around the lump with difficulty. “Every time I opened my mouth to say anything you’d roll your eyes or sigh or turn away—”
“Not true, either.”
“It is true. For me, it’s true. And maybe you were raised in a culture where women are happy to be seen and not heard, but I’m an American. I come from a big family. I have three sisters and a brother and am used to conversation and laughter and activity and the only activity I got from you was sex, and even then it wasn’t mutual. You were the boss, you were in control, dictating to me how it’d be. Strip, crawl, come—” She broke off, gasping for air, and shoved a trembling hand across her eyes, wiping them dry before any tears could fall. “So don’t act so shocked that I’d beg you to help me save my father. Don’t say it’s degrading and beneath me. I know what degrading is. I know what degrading does. And I’ve been there, in our marriage, with you.”
And then she was done, gone.
Morgan raced to the door, her heels clicking on the polished marble, her purse on the antique console in the grand hall close to the front door, her travel bag in the trunk of her hired car.
She’d flown to Naples this morning from London, and yesterday to London from Los Angeles, almost twenty hours of traveling just to get here, never mind the tortuous winding drive to the villa perched high on the cliffs of the coast between Positano and Ravello. She was exhausted and flattened. Finished. But she wasn’t broken. Wasn’t shattered, not the way she’d been leaving him the first time.
Count it as a victory, she told herself, wrenching open the front door and stepping outside into the blinding sunshine. You came, you saw him and you’re leaving in one piece. You did it. You faced your dragon and you survived him.
DRAKON WATCHED MORGAN spin and race from the living room, her cheeks pale, her long dark hair swinging. He could hear her high-heeled sandals clicking against the gleaming floor as she ran, and then heard the front door open and slam shut behind her.
He slowly exhaled and focused on the silence, letting the stillness and quiet wash over him, calm him.
In