Kitabı oku: «Rumours: The Dishonoured Copelands», sayfa 3

As he changed the blade on his razor, he felt a heaviness inside, a dull ache in his chest, as if he’d cut his heart. And then Drakon took the razor to his beard.

He had loved her, and he had wanted her back. Wanted her home with him. But that was before he understood how disgusted she was with him, how disgusted she’d been by their marriage.

Disgust.

He knew that word, and knew disgust produced shame. His mother used to be disgusted by emotion, and as a young child, Drakon had felt constant shame in her presence, shame that he had such strong emotions, emotions she found appalling. He still remembered how wild he’d felt on the inside as a little boy, how desperate and confused he’d felt by her rejection, and how determined he’d been to win her affection, even if it meant destroying part of himself. And so that became the goal, his sole objective as a child. To master his hideous emotions. To master want and need, to stifle them, suppress them, thereby winning his mother’s approval and love.

He succeeded.

Drakon rinsed the shaving cream from his face and studied his smooth, clean jaw in the mirror. He’d forgotten what his face looked like without a beard, had forgotten how lean his cheeks were above his jutting chin. He had a hard chin, a stubborn chin, which was fitting since he knew he’d become a very hard, stubborn man.

A knock sounded on the outer door of his suite. Drakon mopped his damp face, grabbed a robe and crossed his room to open the door, expecting one of the villa staff.

It wasn’t one of the staff. It was Morgan.

Something surged in his chest, hot and fierce, and then it was gone, replaced by coldness. Why was she back? What game was she playing now? He leaned against the door frame, and looked her up and down, coolly, unkindly. “Need more money already?”

Color stained her cheeks, making her blue eyes even deeper, brighter. “You … shaved.”

“I did.”

“We need to talk.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Thank you, but no. I’ve heard more than enough from you already. Now if you’d be so good as to see yourself out, and get back into the helicopter—”

“The helicopter is gone. I sent him away.”

“That was foolish of you. How are you getting back home?”

“We’ll figure that out later.”

“You mean, you can figure that out later. There is no more we. I’m done with you, and done helping you. You’ve got your check, and in a month’s time you’ll receive your settlement, but that’s it. That’s all there is. I’ve nothing more for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

Her eyebrows lifted and she walked past him, into his room, glancing around the impressive bedroom where they’d spent the first month of their marriage. “Looks just as I remembered,” she said, turning to face him. “But you don’t. You’ve changed.”

“Yes, I grew a beard, I know.”

“It’s not just the beard and hair. It’s you. You’re different.”

“Perhaps you weren’t aware. My wife left me. It wasn’t an easy thing.”

She gave him a long, level look. “You could have come after me.”

“I did.”

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“I’m not talking about phone calls, or emails or texts. Those don’t count.”

“No, they don’t, and they don’t work, either, not once you turned your phone off. Which is why I flew repeatedly to New York, drove up to Greenwich—”

“You didn’t!”

His hands clenched at his sides. “Good God, if you contradict me one more time, I will throttle you, Morgan, I will. Because I did go after you, I wanted you back, I wanted you home and I did everything I could to save our marriage. I visited your father at work. I appeared on your parents’ doorstep. I spoke—repeatedly—to each of your siblings—”

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.

“Believe it,” he said grimly, moving toward her, stepping so close he could smell the hint of fragrance from her shampoo, and the sweet clean scent of her perfume on her skin. He loved her smell. Loved her softness. Loved everything about his woman.

But that was then, and this was now, and he was so done with the craziness and the chaos that had followed their marriage.

His gaze caught hers, held, and he stared down into her eyes, drinking in that intense blue that always made him think of the sea around his home in Greece. Tiny purple and gold flecks shimmered against the deep blue irises … like the glimmer of sun on the surface of water. He used to think her eyes perfectly expressed who she was … a woman of magic and mystery and natural beauty.

Now he knew he’d been tricked. Tricked and deceived by a beautiful face, by stunning blue eyes.

Bitterness rolled through him and his gut clenched, his jaw hardening, anger roiling. He really didn’t like remembering, and he really didn’t like feeling the fury and rejection again, but it was what it was. They were what they were. Such was life.

“And if you don’t believe me, make some enquiries. Ask your brother, or your sister Tori, or Logan, or Jemma. Ask them all. Ask why no one would tell me anything. Demand answers, if not for you, then for me. Find out why the entire Copeland family turned their backs on me. I still don’t know why. Just as I don’t know why you disappeared, or where you went, but you were gone. I even hired private investigators, but you were nowhere to be found.”

Morgan bundled her arms across her chest and drew a slow, unsteady breath. A small pulse beat wildly at the base of her throat. “You really came after me?”

“Of course I came after you! You were my wife. You think I just let you go? You think I’d just let you leave?”

She swallowed hard, her blue eyes shining. “Yes.”

He swore softly, and walked away from her, putting distance between them. “I don’t know what kind of man you think you married, but I am not he. In fact, you, my wife, know nothing about me!”

She followed him, her footsteps echoing on the tiled floor. “Maybe that’s because you never gave me a chance to get to know you, Drakon.”

He turned abruptly to face her, and she nearly bumped into him. “Or maybe it’s because you didn’t stay long enough to get to know me, Morgan.”

Morgan took a swift step backward, stunned by his blistering wrath. She squeezed her hands into fists, crumpling the check in her right hand.

The check.

She’d forgotten all about it. Her heart ached as she glanced down at the paper, creased and crumpled in her hand. “If that is truly the case,” she said, voice husky, “I’m sorry.”

“If,” he echoed bitterly, his upper lip lifting. “I find it so ironic that you don’t believe a word I say, and yet when you need something, you’ll come running to me—”

“I didn’t want to come to you.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure of that.” He made a rough sound and turned away, running a hand over his newly shaven jaw. “My God, what a joke. I can’t believe I waited five years for this.”

“What does that mean?”

“Forget it. I don’t want to do this.” He turned and looked at her, cheekbones jutting against his bronzed skin, his amber gaze hard. “I have finally come to the same realization you did five years ago. That we don’t work. That we never worked. That there is no future. And since there is no future, I’ve nothing to say to you. You have the money, you have what you came for—”

“I didn’t just come for money. I need your help.”

“That’s too bad, then, because the check is all you’re getting from me.”

She inhaled sharply. He sounded so angry, so bitter, so unlike her husband. “Drakon, please. You know how the pirates operate. You’ve dealt with them before—”

“No. Sorry. I’m not trying to be ugly, just honest. I’m done. Done with you. Done with your family. Done with your father—my God, there’s a piece of work—but he’s not my problem anymore, because I’m not his son-in-law anymore, either. And I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually glad to be done … glad to have a complete break. You’ve exhausted every one of my resources, and I’ve nothing more to give. To you, or the rest of the Copeland family.”

She winced and looked away, hoping he didn’t see the tears that filled her eyes. “No one told me you came after me,” she said faintly, her gaze fixed on the view of the sea beyond the window. “But then, in that first year after I left you, no one told me anything.”

“I don’t see how that is relevant now.”

“It probably won’t mean anything to you now, but it’s relevant to me. It’s a revelation, and a comfort—”

“A comfort?” he repeated sarcastically.

She lifted her chin a fraction, squared her shoulders. “Yes, a comfort, knowing you didn’t give up on me quickly, or easily.”

“Unlike you, who gave up so quickly and easily.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are, now that the privileged Copelands are broke.”

She laughed to keep from crying. He was so very, very changed. “We’re broke,” she agreed, “every last one of us, and struggling, but my brother and sisters, they’re smart. They’ll be fine. They’ll come out of this okay. Me … I’m in trouble. I’m stupid—”

“If this is a play for my sympathy, it’s not working.”

“No. I’m just telling you the truth. I’m stupid. Very, very stupid. You see, I didn’t come to you first. I tried to handle the pirates on my own. And I’ve already given them money—”

“What?”

She licked her lower lip. “We didn’t want it known about my father, and so we kept the details to ourselves, and I tried to manage freeing my father on my own, and I gave them money. But they didn’t free my father.”

Drakon just looked at her, his jaw clenched, his lips a hard flat line. She could see the pulse beating at the base of his throat. His amber gaze burned. He was furious.

Furious.

Morgan exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself, trying to steady her nerves, but it wasn’t easy when her heart raced and the blood roared in her ears. “I didn’t want to have to bother you, Drakon. I thought I could manage things better than I did.”

He just kept staring at her, his spine stiff, his muscles tensed. He was clearly at war within himself and Morgan felt his anger and frustration. He wanted to kick her out of the villa but he didn’t run from responsibilities, or from providing for his family.

He was Greek. Family was everything to him. Even if he didn’t enjoy his family.

His tone was icy cold as he spoke. “You should have never tried to handle the pirates on your own. You should have gone to Dunamas or Blue Sea immediately—”

“I didn’t have the money to pay for outside help or expertise,” she said softly, cutting him short, unable to endure another lecture. “I didn’t even have enough to pay the three million ransom. You see, that’s what they asked for in the beginning. Three million. But I couldn’t come up with exactly three million, and I’d run out of time, so I made the sea drop with what I had, thinking that almost three million was better than nothing, but I was wrong. The pirates were really angry, and accused me of playing games, and they were now doubling the ransom to six million and I had just two weeks or they’d execute Dad.”

“How much were you short?”

“A hundred thousand.”

“But you dropped two-point-nine million?”

She nodded. “I was so close to three million, and to get it I emptied my savings, sold my loft, liquidated everything I had, but I couldn’t get more. I tried taking out personal loans from family and friends but no one was able to come up with a hundred thousand cash in the amount of time we had.”

“You didn’t come to me for the hundred thousand.”

“I didn’t want to involve you.”

“You have now.”

“Because there was no one else who would help me. No other way to come up with six million without my father’s situation becoming public knowledge.”

“One hundred thousand would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than six million.”

“I know.” Her stomach heaved. She felt so terribly queasy. “But then, I told you I was stupid. I was afraid to come to you, afraid to face you—”

“I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“No, but I have my pride. And then there were all those feelings—” she broke off, and gulped air, thinking she might just throw up “—because I did have feelings for you, and they confused me, but in the end, I had to come. Had to ask you for help … help and money, because the pirates are playing games. They’re toying with me and I’m scared. Scared of botching this, scared of never seeing my father again, scared that they have all the power and I have none.”

She opened her fist, smoothed the creased check, studied the number and sum it represented. “I know you’re angry with me, and I know you owe me nothing. I know it’s I that owe you, but I need your help, Drakon. At the very least, I need your advice. What do I do now? How do I make sure that they will release my father this time?” Her gaze lifted, met his. “Who is to say that they will ever release him? Who is to say that he’s even … he’s even …” Her voice drifted off, and she gazed at him, unable to finish the thought.

But she didn’t have to finish the thought. “You’re afraid he might not be alive,” Drakon said, brutally blunt.

She nodded, eyes stinging. “What if he isn’t?”

“That’s a good question.”

“So you see why I need you. I’ve already given them three million. I can’t give them another six without proof, but they refuse to let me speak to him, and I don’t know what to do. I’m frightened, Drakon. And overwhelmed. I’ve been trying to keep it together, but I don’t know how to do this—”

“You and your father sing the same tune, don’t you?”

She just stared at him, confused. “What does that mean?”

“The only time I hear from you, or your father, is when one of the Copelands needs money. But I’m not a bank, or an ATM machine, and I’m tired of being used.”

Morgan struggled to speak. “I never meant to use you, Drakon. And I certainly didn’t marry you for money, and I’m ashamed my father asked you to invest in his company, ashamed that he’d put you in that position. I didn’t agree with it then, and I’m shattered now that he lost so much of your personal wealth, but he is my father, and I can’t leave him in Somalia. It might be acceptable … even fiscally responsible, but it’s not morally responsible, not to me. And so I’m here, begging for your help because you are the only one who can help me.”

She paused, swallowed, her gaze searching his face, trying to see a hint of softening on his part. “You might not want to hear this right now, Drakon, but you’d do the same if it were your family. I know you … I know who you are, and I know you’d sacrifice everything if you had to.”

Drakon looked at her hard, his features harsh, expression shuttered, and then turned away, and walked to the window where he put his hand on the glass, his gaze fixed on the blue horizon. Silence stretched. Morgan waited for him to speak, not wanting to say more, or rush him to a decision, because she knew in her heart, he couldn’t tell her no … it’d go against his values, go against his ethics as a man, and a protective Greek male.

But it was hard to wait, and her jaw ached from biting down so hard, and her stomach churned and her head throbbed, but she had to wait. The ball was in Drakon’s court now.

It was a long time before he spoke, and when he did, his voice was pitched so low she had to strain to hear. “I have sacrificed everything for my family,” he said roughly. “And it taught me that no good deed goes unpunished.”

Her eyes burned, gritty, and her chest squeezed tight with hot emotion. “Please tell me I wasn’t the one who taught you that!”

His hand turned into a fist on the window.

Morgan closed her eyes, held her breath, her heart livid with pain. She had loved him … so much … too much….

“I need to think, and want some time,” Drakon said, still staring out the window, after another long, tense silence. “Go downstairs. Wait for me there.”

CHAPTER THREE

DRAKON WAITED FOR the bedroom door to close behind Morgan before turning around.

His gut churned with acid and every breath he drew hurt.

He wasn’t going to do it. There was no way in hell he’d actually help her free her father. For one—he hated her father. For another—Drakon had washed his hands of her. The beard was gone. The vigil was over. Time to move forward.

There was no reason he needed to be involved. No reason to do more than he had. As it was, he’d gone above and beyond the call of duty. He’d given her the money, he’d told her what to do, he’d made it clear that there were those who knew exactly what to do, he’d named the people to call … he’d done everything for her, short of actually dialing Dunamas on his cell phone, and good God, he would not do that.

Drakon stalked back to the bathroom, stared at his reflection, seeing the grim features, the cold, dead eyes, and then suddenly his face dissolved in the mirror and he saw Morgan’s instead.

He saw that perfect pale oval with its fine, elegant features, but her loveliness was overshadowed by the worry in her blue eyes, and the dark purple smudges beneath her eyes, and her unnatural pallor. Worse, even here, in the expansive marble bathroom, he could still feel her exhaustion and fatigue.

She’d practically trembled while talking to him, her thin arms and legs still too frail for his liking and he flashed back to that day in New York where he’d spotted her walking out of her shop with Jemma. Morgan might not be sick now, but she didn’t look well.

Someone, somewhere should be helping her. Not him … she wasn’t his to protect anymore … but there should be someone who could assist her. In an ideal world, there would be someone.

He shook his head, not comfortable with the direction his thoughts were taking him. She’s not your problem, he told himself. She’s not your responsibility. Not your woman.

Drakon groaned, turned away from the mirror, walked out of the bathroom, to retrieve his phone. He’d make a few calls, check on a few facts, see if he couldn’t find someone to work with her, because she’d need someone at her side. Not him, of course, but someone who could offer advice and assistance, or just be a source of support.

Standing outside on his balcony he made a few calls, and then he made a few more, and a few more, and each call was worse than the last.

Morgan 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 won’t let us. They say we haven’t earned the right.”

“But you’ve given them three million.”

Her lips curved bitterly and her gaze lifted to meet his. “I can’t sleep at night, knowing I was so stupid and so wasteful. Three million dollars gone! Three million lost forever. It would have been fine if we’d saved my father, but we didn’t. I didn’t. Instead it’s all gone and now I must start over and worse, the ransom has doubled. I’m sick about it, sick that I made such a critical error. I didn’t mind liquidating everything to save my father, but it turns out I liquidated everything for nothing—”

“Stop.”

“You are right to despise me. I am stupid, stupid, stupid—”

He caught her by the shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “Enough. You didn’t know. You didn’t understand how the pirates operated, how mercurial they are, how difficult, how unpredictable. You had no way of knowing. There is no handbook on dealing with pirates, so stop torturing yourself.”

With every sentence he gave her a little shake until she was thoroughly undone and tears filled her eyes, ridiculous tears that stung and she swiped at them, annoyed, knowing they were from fatigue, not sadness, aware that she was exhausted beyond reason, knowing that what she wanted was Drakon to kiss her, not shake her, but just because you wanted something didn’t mean it was good for you. And Drakon wasn’t good for her. She had to remember that.

He saw her tears. His features darkened. “We’ll get your father back,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her, his voice as carnal as the rest of him, drawing her into his arms and holding her against his chest, comforting her.

For a moment.

Morgan pulled back, slipping from Drakon’s arms, and took several quick steps away to keep from being tempted to return. He’d been so warm. He’d smelled so good. His hard chest, covered in cashmere, had made her want to burrow closer. She’d felt safe there, secure, and yet it was an illusion.

Drakon wasn’t safe. He was anything but safe for her.

He watched her make her escape. His jaw jutted, his brow lowered, expression brooding. “We’ll get your father back,” he said, repeating his promise from a few moments ago. “And we’ll do it without giving them another dollar.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “How?”

“I know people.”

She blinked at him. Of course he knew people—Drakon knew everyone—but could he really free her father without giving the pirates more money? “Is that possible?”

“There are companies … services … that exist just for this purpose.”

“I’ve looked into those companies. They cost millions, and they won’t help me. They loathe my father. He represents everything they detest—”

“But they’ll work with me.”

“Not when they hear who they are to rescue—”

“I own one of the largest shipping companies in the world. No maritime agency would refuse me.”

Hope rose up within her, but she didn’t trust it, didn’t trust anyone or anything anymore. “But you said … you said you wouldn’t help me. You said since you’d given me the check—”

“I was wrong. I was being petty. But I can’t be petty. You’re my wife—” he saw her start to protest and overrode her “—and as long as you are my wife, it’s my duty to care for you and your family. It is the vow I made, and a vow I will keep.”

“Even though I left you?”

“You left me. I didn’t leave you.”

Pain flickered through her. “You owe me nothing. I know that. You must know that, too.”

“Marriage isn’t about keeping score. Life is uneven and frequently unjust and I did not marry you, anticipating only fun and games. I expected there would be challenges, and there have been, far more than I anticipated, but until we are divorced, you are my wife, and the law is the law, and it is my duty to provide for you, to protect you, and I can see I have failed to do both.”

She closed her eyes, shattered by his honesty, as well as his sense of responsibility. Drakon was a good man, a fair man, and he deserved a good wife, a wife less highly strung and sensitive … a wife who craved him less, a wife who could live and breathe without him at her side….

Morgan wasn’t that woman. Even now she wanted to be back in his arms, to have his mouth on hers, to have him parting her lips, tasting her, filling her, possessing her so completely that the world fell away, leaving just the two of them.

That was her idea of life.

And it was mad and beautiful and impossible and bewitching.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her, wishing she’d needed less talk and tenderness and reassurance. “It’s mine. Maybe even my father’s. He spoiled me, you know, and it infuriated my mother.”

“Your mother did say at our wedding that you were your daddy’s little girl.”

Morgan’s breath caught in her throat and she bit into her bottom lip. “Mother had Tori and Branson and Logan, and yes, I was Daddy’s girl, but they were Mother’s darlings, and you’d think since she had them living with her, choosing her, she wouldn’t mind that I chose to live with Father, but she did.”