Читать книгу Rumours: The Dishonoured Copelands: The Fallen Greek Bride (The Disgraced Copelands) / His Defiant Desert Queen (The Disgraced Copelands) / Her Sinful Secret (The Disgraced Copelands) - Jane Porter - Страница 13

MORGAN PASSED ON coffee and returned to her room, finding it far too painful to sit across from Drakon and look at him, and be so close to him, and yet not be part of his life anymore. Better to return to her suite and pace the floor in privacy, where he couldn’t read her face or know how confused she felt.

How could she still want him so much even now? How could she want him when she knew how dangerous he was for her?

She needed to go home, back to New York, back to her family. There was no reason to remain here. Surely this man, Rowan whatever-his-name-was, from Dunamas Intelligence, didn’t need her here for his work. He could email her, or call, when he had news….

Morgan nearly returned downstairs to tell Drakon she wanted to leave tonight, that she insisted on leaving tonight, but as she opened her door she realized how ridiculous she’d sound, demanding to go just when Rowan was set to arrive. No, she needed to calm down. She was being foolish. As well as irrational. Drakon wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t going to destroy her. She just needed to keep her head, and not let him anywhere close to her body.

Morgan went to bed, thinking she’d be too wound up to sleep, but she did finally sleep and then woke up early, her room filled with dazzling morning sunlight. After showering, she dressed simply in slim white slacks and one of her favorite colorful tunics and headed downstairs to see if she could get a coffee.

One of the maids gestured to the breakfast room, which was already set for two. Morgan shook her head. “Just coffee,” she said, unable to stomach the idea of another meal with Drakon. “An Americano with milk. Latte,” she added. “But nothing to eat.”

The maid didn’t understand and gestured again to the pretty table with its cheerful yellow and blue linens and smiled winningly.

“No, no. Just coffee. Take away.” Morgan frowned, wondering why she couldn’t seem to remember a single word of Italian. She used to know a little bit, but her brain wasn’t working this morning. She was drawing a total blank.

The maid smiled. “Coffee. Americano, si. Prego.” And she gestured to the table once more.

Morgan gave up and sat down at the table, needing coffee more than argument. She ended up having breakfast alone and enjoyed her warm pastries and juice and strong hot coffee, which she laced with milk.

The sun poured in through the tall leaded windows, and light dappled the table, shining on the blue water glasses and casting prisms of delicate blue on the white plaster walls.

Morgan studied the patches of blue glazing the walls. She loved the color blue, particularly this cobalt-blue glass one found on the Amalfi coast, and could imagine beautiful jewelry made from the same blue glass, round beads and square knots mixed with gold and shells and bits of wood and other things that caught her fancy.

Her fingers suddenly itched to pick up a pencil and sketch some designs, not the extravagant gold cuffs and collars from her Amalfi collection, but something lighter, simpler. These pieces would be more affordable, perhaps a little bit of a splurge for younger girls, but within reach if they’d saved their pennies. Morgan could imagine the trendy jet-setters buying up strands of different colors and textures and pairing them with easy bracelets, perfect to wear to dinner, or out shopping on a weekend, or on a beach in Greece.

“What are you thinking about?” Drakon asked from the doorway.

Startled, she gazed blankly at him, having forgotten for a moment where she was. “Jewelry,” she said, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something naughty. “Why?”

“You were smiling a little … as if you were daydreaming.”

“I suppose I was. It helps me to imagine designing things. Makes the loss of my company less painful.”

“You’ll have another store again.”

“It’d be fiscally irresponsible. My last collection nearly bankrupted me.”

One of the kitchen staff appeared with an espresso for Drakon and handed it to him. He nodded toward the table. “May I join you?”

“Of course you may, but I was just about to leave,” she said.

“Then don’t let me keep you,” he answered.

His voice didn’t change—it remained deep, smooth, even—but she saw something in his face, a shadow in his eyes, and she suddenly felt vile. Here he was, helping her, supporting her, extending himself emotionally and financially, and she couldn’t even be bothered to sit with him while he had breakfast?

“But if you don’t mind my company,” she added quickly, “I’ll have another coffee and stay.”

There was another flicker in his eyes, this one harder to read, and after sitting down across from her, he rang the bell and ordered another coffee for her, along with his breakfast.

They talked about trivial things over breakfast like the weather and movies and books they’d read lately. Morgan was grateful their talk was light and impersonal. She was finding it hard to concentrate in the first place, never mind carry on a conversation. Drakon was so beautiful this morning with his dark hair still slightly damp from his shower and his jaw freshly shaven. The morning light gilded him, with the sun playing across his strong, handsome features, illuminating his broad brow, his straight Greek nose, his firm full mouth.

It was impossible to believe this gorgeous, gorgeous man had been her husband. She was mad to leave him. But then, living with him had made her insane.

Drakon’s black brows tugged. “It’s going to be all right. Rowan should be here in the next hour. We’ll soon have information about your father.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Last night after you’d gone to bed I was thinking about everything you said yesterday—” He broke off, frowning. “Am I really such an ogre, Morgan? Why do you think I would judge you … and judge you so harshly?”

His gaze, so direct, so piercing, unnerved her. She smoothed the edge of the yellow square cloth where it met the blue underskirt. “Your corporation is worth billions of dollars and your work is vital to Greece and world’s economy. I’m nothing. I do nothing. I add little value—”

“Life isn’t just about drudgery. It is also about beauty, and you bring beauty into the world.” The heat in his eyes reminded her of their courtship, where he’d watched her across ballrooms with that lazy, sensual gleam in his eyes, his expression one of pride and pleasure as well as possession. She’d felt powerful with his eyes on her. Beautiful and important.

“But I don’t think important thoughts. I don’t discuss relevant topics.”

“Relevant to whom?”

“To you! I bore you—”

“Where do you get these ideas from?”

“From you.” She swallowed hard and forced herself to hold his gaze even though it was so incredibly uncomfortable. “I annoyed you when we lived together. And I don’t blame you. I know you find people like me irritating.”

His black eyebrows pulled and his jaw jutted. “People like you? What does that mean?”

She shrugged uneasily, wishing she hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t meant anything by it.

No, not true. She had. She still remembered how he had shut down her attempts at conversation once their honeymoon had ended and they’d returned to Greece, remembered their silent lonely evenings in their sprawling modern white marble villa. Drakon would arrive home from work and they’d sit in the dining room, but it’d been a silent meal, with Drakon often reviewing papers or something on his tablet and then afterward he’d retreat to a chair in the living room and continue reading until bed. Once in the bedroom, things changed. Behind the closed door, he’d want hot, erotic sex, and for twenty minutes or sixty, or even longer depending on the night, he’d be alive, and sensual, utterly engrossed with her body and pleasure, and then when it was over, he’d fall asleep, and in the morning when she woke, he’d be gone, back to his office.

“People like me who don’t read the business section of the newspaper. People like me who don’t care passionately about politics. People like me who don’t make money but spend it.” She lifted her chin and smiled at him, a hard dazzling smile to hide how much those memories still hurt. “People who can only talk about fashion and shopping and which restaurants are considered trendy.”

He tapped his finger on the table. “I do not understand the way you say, ‘people like you.’ I’ve never met anyone like you. For me, there is you, and only you.”

She leaned forward, her gaze locking with his. “Why did you marry me, Drakon?”

“Because I wanted you. You were made for me. Meant for me.”

“What did you like about me?”

“Everything.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. I loved your beauty, your intelligence, your warmth, your passion, your smile, your laugh.”

She noticed he said loved, past tense, and it hurt, a hot lance of pain straight through her heart. Perhaps it was merely a slip, or possibly, a grammatical error, but both were unlikely. Drakon didn’t make mistakes.

“But you know that,” he added brusquely.

“No,” she said equally roughly, “I didn’t know that. I had no idea why you cared about me, or if you even cared for me—”

“How can you say such a thing?”

“Because you never talked to me!” she cried. “After our honeymoon ended, you disappeared.”

“I merely went back to work, Morgan.”

“Yes, but you worked twelve- and fourteen-hour days, which would have been fine, but when you came home, you were utterly silent.”

“I was tired. I work long days.”

“And I was home alone all day with servants who didn’t speak English.”

“You promised me you were going to learn Greek.”

“I did, I took lessons at the language school in Athens, but when you came home at night, you were irritated by my attempts to speak Greek, insisting we converse in English—” She compressed her lips, feeling the resentment and frustration bubble up. “And then when I tried to make friends, I kept bumping into your old girlfriends and lovers. Athens is full of them. How many women have you been with, Drakon?”

“You make it sound like you met dozens of exes, but you bumped into just three.”

“You’re right, just three, and in hindsight, they were actually much nicer than the Greek socialites I met who were furious that I’d stolen Greece’s most eligible bachelor from under their noses.” Morgan’s eyes sparkled dangerously. “How could I, a trashy American, take one of Greece’s national treasures?”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was that bad! Everybody hated me before I even arrived!” She leaned across the table. “You should have warned me, Drakon. Prepared me for my new married life.”

“I didn’t know … hadn’t realized … that some of the ladies would be so catty, but I always came home to you every night.”

“No, I didn’t have you. That was the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

Morgan laughed coolly. “You came home to dinner, a bed and sex, but you didn’t come home to me, because if you had, you would have talked to me, and tried to speak Greek to me, and you would have helped me meet people, instead of getting annoyed with me for caring what Greek women thought of me.”

He swore violently and got up from the table, pacing the floor once before turning to look at her. “I can’t believe this is why you left me. I can’t believe you’d walk out on me, and our marriage, because I’m not one for conversation. I’ve never been a big talker, but coming home to you was my favorite part of the day. It’s what I looked forward to all day long, from the moment I left for my office.”

She swallowed around the lump filling her throat. “And yet when Bronwyn called you at home, you’d talk to her for hours.”

“Not for hours.”

“For thirty minutes at a time. Over and over every night.”

“We had business to discuss.”

“And could nothing wait until the morning? Was everything really a crisis? Or could she just not make a decision without you?”

“Is that why you left me? Because of Bronwyn?”

Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, yes, yes. But in her heart she knew Bronwyn Harper was only part of the issue. Drakon’s close relationship with his Australian vice president only emphasized how lonely and empty Morgan felt with him. “Bronwyn’s constant presence in our lives didn’t help matters. Every time I turned around, she was there, and you did talk to her, whereas you didn’t talk to me.”

The fight abruptly left her, and once her anger deserted her, she was exhausted and flattened, depressed by a specter of what they had been, and the illusion of what she’d hoped they’d be. “But it’s a moot point now. It doesn’t matter—” She broke off. “My God! You’re doing it now. Rolling your eyes! Looking utterly bored and annoyed.”

“I’m frustrated, Morgan, and yes, I do find this entire conversation annoying because you’re putting words in my mouth, telling me how I felt, and I’m telling you I didn’t feel that way when we were married.”

“Don’t you remember telling me repeatedly that you had people—women—talking at you at work, and that you didn’t need me talking at you at home? Don’t you remember telling me, you preferred silence—”

“I remember telling you that once, because I did come home one day needing quiet, and I wanted you to know it wasn’t personal, and that I wasn’t upset with you, that it had simply been a long day with a lot of people talking at me.” He walked toward her, his gaze hard, his expression forbidding. “And instead of you being understanding, you went into hysterics, crying and raging—”

“I wasn’t hysterical.”

“You had no right to be upset, though.” He was standing before her now. “I’d just lost two members of my crew from a hijacked ship and I’d had to tell the families that their loved ones were gone and it was a bad, bad day. A truly awful day.”

“Then tell me next time that something horrific has happened, and I’ll understand, but don’t just disappear into your office and give me the silent treatment.”

“I shouldn’t have to talk if I don’t want to talk.”

“I was your wife. If something important happens in your world, I’d like to know.”

“It’s not as if you could do anything.”

“But I could care, Drakon, and I would at least know what’s happening in your life and I could grieve for the families of your crew, too, because I would have grieved, and I would have wanted to comfort you—”

“I don’t need comforting.”

“Clearly.” Hot, sharp emotions rushed through her, one after the other, and she gave her head a fierce, decisive shake. “Just as you clearly didn’t need me, either, because you don’t need anything, Drakon Xanthis. You’re perfect and complete just the way you are!”

She brushed past him and walked out, not quickly, or tearfully, but resolutely, reassured all over again that she had done the right thing in leaving him. He really didn’t want a wife, or a partner, someone that was equal and valuable. He only wanted a woman for physical release. In his mind, that was all a woman was good for, and thank God she’d left when she had or he would have destroyed her completely.

Drakon caught up with her in the narrow stairway at the back of the villa. It had once been the staircase for the servants and was quite simple with plain plaster walls and steep, small stairs, but it saved Morgan traversing the long hallway.

He clasped her elbow, stopping her midstep. “You are so very good at running away, Morgan.”

She shook him off and turned to face him. He was standing two steps down but that still put them on eye level and she stared into his eyes, so very full of anger and pain. “And you are so good at shutting people out!”

“I don’t need to report to you, Morgan. You are my wife, not my colleague.”

“And funny enough, I would rather have been your colleague than your wife. At least you would have talked to me!”

“But then there would have been no lovemaking.”

“Perhaps it will surprise you to know that I’m actually far more interested in what’s in your brain than what’s in your trousers.” She saw his incredulous expression and drew a ragged breath, horrified all over again that their entire relationship had been based on sex and chemistry. Horrified that she’d married a man who only wanted her for her body. “It’s true. Lovemaking is empty without friendship, and we had no friendship, Drakon. We just had sex—”

“Not this again!”

“Yes, this again.”

“You’re being absurd.”

“Thank God we’ll both soon be free so we can find someone that suits us both better. You can go get another pretty girl and give her an orgasm once or twice a day and feel like a real man, and I’ll find a man who has warmth and compassion, a man who cares about what I think and feel, a man who wants to know me, and not just my body!”

He came up one step, and then another until they were on the same narrow stair, crowding her so that her back was against the plaster of the stairwell, and his big body was almost touching hers.

A dangerous light shone in his eyes, making her blood hum in her veins and her nerves dance. “Is that all I’m interested in? Your body?” he growled, a small muscle popping in his jaw.

She stared at his jaw, fascinated by that telling display of temper. He was angry and this was all so new … his temper and emotion. She’d always thought of him as supremely controlled but his tension was palpable now. He practically seethed with frustration and it made her skin tingle, particularly her lips, which suddenly felt unbearably sensitive. “Apparently so.”

He stepped even closer, his eyes glittering down at her. “I wish I’d known that before I married you. It would have saved me half a billion dollars, never mind years of trouble.”

“We all make mistakes,” she taunted, deliberately provoking him, but unable to help herself. Drakon Xanthis’s famous icy control was cracking and she wondered what would happen when it shattered completely. “Best thing you can do now is forgive yourself for making such a dreadful mistake and move forward.”

Fire flashed in his eyes and he leaned in, closing the gap between them so that his broad chest just grazed the swell of her breasts and she could feel the tantalizing heat of his hips so close to hers.

“Such an interesting way to view things,” he said, his head dropping, his voice deepening. “With you as my mistake.”

His lips were so close now and her lower back tingled and her belly tightened, and desire coursed through her veins, making her ache everywhere.

She could feel his need, feel the desire and her mouth dried, her heart hammering harder. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted the kiss, craved his kiss, even as a little voice of reason inside her head sounded the alarm….

Stop. Wait. Think.

She had to remember … remember the past … remember what had happened last time … this wasn’t just a kiss, but an inferno. If she gave in to this kiss, it’d be all over. Drakon was so dangerous for her. He did something to her. He, like his name, Drakon, Greek for dragon, was powerful and potent and destructive.

But he was also beautiful and physical and sensual and he made her feel. My God, he made her feel and she wanted that intensity now. Wanted him now.

“My beautiful, expensive mistake,” he murmured, his lips brushing across the shell of her ear, making her breath catch in her throat and sending hot darts of delicious sensation throughout her body, making her aware of every sensitive spot.

“Next time, don’t marry the girl,” she said, trying to sound brazen and cavalier, but failing miserably as just then he pushed his thigh between her legs. The heat of his hard body scalded her, and the unexpected pressure and pleasure was so intense she gasped, making her head spin.

“Would you have been happier just being my mistress?” he asked, his tongue tracing the curve of her ear even as his muscular thigh pressed up, his knee against her core, teasing her senses, making her shiver with need.

She was wet and hot, too hot, and her skin felt too tight. She wanted relief, needed relief, and it didn’t help that she couldn’t catch her breath. She was breathing shallowly, her chest rising and falling while her mouth dried.

“Would you have been able to let go more? Enjoyed the sex without guilt?” he added, biting her tender earlobe, his teeth sharp, even as he wedged his thigh deeper between her knees, parting her thighs wider so that she felt like a butterfly pinned against the wall.

“There was no guilt,” she choked, eyes closing as he worked his thigh against her in a slow maddening circle. He was so warm and she was so wet and she knew it was wrong, but she wanted more, not less.

His teeth scraped across that hollow beneath her ear and she shuddered against him, thinking he remembered how sensitive she was, how her body responded to every little touch and bite and caress.

“Liar.” He leaned in closer, his knee grinding and his hips pressing down against her hips, making her pelvis feel hot and yet hollow, and the muscles inside her womb clench. “You liked it hot. You liked it when I made you fall apart.”

And it was true, she thought, her body so tight and hot and aching that she arched against him, absolutely wanton. There was no satisfaction like this, though, and she wanted satisfaction. Wanted him. Wanted him here and now. Wanted him to lift her tunic and expose her breasts and knead and roll the tight, aching nipples between his fingers. He’d made her come that way before, just by playing with her nipples, and he’d watched her face as she came, watched every flicker of emotion that crossed her face as he broke her control….

If only he’d peel her clothes off now, if only she could feel his skin on her skin, feel him in her, needing the heat and fullness of him inside her, craving the pleasure of being taken, owned, possessed—

Morgan’s eyes flew open.

Owned?

Owned? My God. She was insane.

Visions of her months at McLean Hospital filled her head and it dragged her abruptly back to reality. She had to be smart. Couldn’t destroy herself again. Never wanted to go back to McLean Hospital again.

The very memory of McLean was enough for her to put her hands on his chest and push him back, and she pushed hard, but he didn’t budge and all she felt was the warm dense plane of muscle that banded his ribs, and the softness of his cashmere sweater over the dense carved muscle.

“Get off,” she panted, pushing harder, putting all of her weight into the shove but Drakon was solid, immoveable. “I’m not a toy, Drakon, not here for your amusement.”

His hand snaked into her hair, twisting the dark length around his fist, holding her face up to his. “Good, because I’m not amused.”

“No, you’re just aroused,” she answered coldly, furious with herself for responding to him with such abandon. So typical. So pathetic. No wonder her family had locked her up.

He caught one of her hands and dragged it down his body and between their hips to cup his erection. “Yes,” he drawled, amber gaze burning, “so I am.”

She inhaled sharply, her fingers curving around him, clasping his thick shaft as if measuring the hard length, and it was a terrible seductive pleasure, touching him like this. She remembered how he felt inside her—hot, heavy—and how the satin heat of his body would stretch her, stroke her, hitting nerve endings she hadn’t even known she had.

Curiosity and desire warred with her sense of self-preservation, before overriding her common sense.

Morgan palmed the length of him, slowly, firmly running her hand down his shaft and then, as if unable to stop herself, back up again to cup the thick, rounded head. She’d never thought a man’s body was beautiful before she’d met Drakon, but she loved every muscle and shadow of his body, loved the lines and the planes and the way his cock hung heavy between his muscular legs. He was such a powerfully built man, and yet the skin on his shaft was so smooth and sensitive, like silk, and the contradiction between his great, hard body and that delicate skin fascinated her.

But then he fascinated her. No, it was more than that, more than fascination. It was an obsession. She needed him so much she found it virtually impossible to live without him.

“You want me,” he said. “You want me to peel your trousers and knickers off and take you here, on these steps, don’t you?”

Fire surged through her veins, fire and hunger and shame. Because yes, she did want him and her orgasms were the most intense when he pushed it to the edge, making every touch into something dangerous and erotic. “You do like to dominate,” she answered breathlessly.

He tugged on her hair, and it hurt a little, just as he’d intended, making her nipples harden into tight, aching buds even as she stiffened against him, her body rippling with need.

“And you do like to be dominated,” he rasped in her ear.