Rumours: The Dishonoured Copelands. Jane Porter

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.”