Rumours: The Dishonoured Copelands. Jane Porter

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,