The Drakon Baby Bargain

She stepped back, the steel in his tone cutting through any foolish delusions she might still be clinging to. “It’s not a joke. It’s nothing,” she whispered and turned away.

Barely had she gone two steps before a vise-like grip had clamped over her upper arm and turned her. “Why are you here tonight? What do you want from me?”

The nerve of the man! “You approached me. You...you ordered me to stay and keep you company. You... I only spoke the truth.”

“So I’m supposed to believe the Plain Princess of Drakon—” he bit out her moniker with such sarcasm that Eleni flinched “—walks around masquerade balls, accosting men for kisses? That this is your nightly routine?”

“I did not accost you at all. And yes... I wanted a kiss. I wanted to feel less lonely for one night. I wanted...” Her voice caught, but she didn’t back down. “Which scenario threatens your masculine ego—that a woman could want to kiss a man, or that in your arrogance you think I came here looking to somehow trap you into kissing me?”

“You lied to me, Princesa. I asked you straight and you said you didn’t know me. Maybe you even got a little power trip from the fact that you knew who I was and I didn’t know who you were. Maybe it’s a little game you play every night with powerful men.”

“You’re crossing the line!”

“I’m sick of deceit and lies. If it is a kiss you want, here it is!”

If Eleni had had any sense, she would have slapped his arrogant jaw, hard. But no, when he touched his lips to hers again, she melted. She had no will or control over her body.

When he licked the seam of her lips, she gasped open for him, like a sunflower.

When he plunged his tongue into the cavern of her mouth, she shamelessly pressed against him.

His hands moved to her bottom and he pressed her against him, until she felt the evidence of his arousal. Until the hard planes of his body were stamped onto her soft curves. Until she was moaning, spreading her legs to feel more of him.

The kiss was over before it had begun, and yet it seemed to spin her senses. And the man who had delivered it looked at her as if she had agreed to sell her soul for pennies. “If you’re that desperate for a man, maybe ask one of your powerful brothers to set you up with one, Princesa,” he said mockingly. “The next man you play your little game with might not be as forgiving as me for your duplicity.”

Eleni stared at him, shaking from head to toe, burning with the unspent desire that he had aroused in her. Desire, she now realized, he had aroused with the sole intention of punishing her.

“I would not kiss you again if you were the last man on earth, Mr. Marquez,” she shouted but he’d already gone.

Try as she might to fight the temptation, she couldn’t help but run her fingers over her stinging mouth. Couldn’t stop tasting him on her lips.

CHAPTER TWO

Three months later

“I HATE THIS PLACE, I hate that I had to give up all my friends and move here and I hate you.”

The loud, blistering announcement exploded inside the conference room like a small detonation, jerking twelve heads toward the twelve-year-old girl standing just inside the room. Face scrunched, eyes brimming with fat tears, his daughter, Angelina, stood glaring at Gabriel Marquez.

A pounding began behind his left eye.

He had made his father’s small construction company into a billionaire real estate firm, he owned major chunks of multinational companies, he had palatial residences in nine different cities in the world, but this was one problem, it seemed, for which he had no solution.

Angelina had come to live with him three months ago after her mother had passed away suddenly—a model he had met in New York, years ago.

His own daughter was a stranger, because until the accident that had killed her, Monique hadn’t had the decency to tell Gabriel that he had a daughter.

Now Angelina looked at him as if he were a monster, as if he had taken away the one person who had loved her.

He hadn’t been able to have one normal conversation with her in all the weeks she had been in Drakon with him.

“Angelina, calm down and wait for my meeting to finish,” he gritted out. His jaw hurt with how tightly he had leashed the urge to vent his frustration that he was floundering just as much as she was.

That they were strangers to each other was not his fault.

His board members stared between him and Angie like spectators at a tennis match, ready to feed fuel to the wildly spreading rumors that Gabriel Marquez was an abysmal father.

Anything he did and said was news to the press. But the fact that he’d successfully hidden the existence of a daughter, who’d been born out of wedlock, for twelve years, sent them into a feeding frenzy. That his daughter hated him with every breath and, even worse, didn’t know him at all would be the cherry on a very nasty cake.

“If I waited for you to finish one of your unending meetings, I would wait forever. All I want is to—”

Gabriel shot up from his seat, frustration boiling over in his blood. “You behave like a spoiled brat, with no concern for others’ time. Has your mother taught you no manners?”

Her flinch fell on him like a poisoned dart, sinking deep. Goddamn it, nothing he said ever worked with Angelina. The tears that she had somehow contained in those big eyes fell onto her round cheeks, drawing paths down to her neck. “I wish you had died instead of Mom. I wish you weren’t my father. I wish—”

“Angelina! That’s enough,” a feminine voice shot out.

Shock traveled through Gabriel as his daughter, who’d barely exchanged one civil word with him in three months, instantly looked contrite. Her round shoulders straightened and something shifted in the planes of her juvenile face, already struggling to show signs of adulthood.

He startled when Eleni Drakos pushed her chair back and walked toward his daughter, her expression one of sternness and yet somehow kindness at the same time.

Gabriel frowned as her pumps click-clacked against the marble floor. In three months, he hadn’t been able to quite put his finger on the woman the media disparagingly called the Plain Princess.

An opinion he didn’t agree with anymore.

Unlike her tall, dark brothers, the Princes of Drakon, Eleni Drakos, on first impression, was a mousy woman. Ten years ago, she’d barely ever met his gaze, hiding behind King Theos’s fierce temper.

Since he’d arrived in Drakon a few months ago, however, he’d watched the brisk efficiency with which she ordered the palace staff around—and even his staff.

Every time he turned around, there she was, a petite dynamo. Only now, as he saw her reach Angelina, did he realize how much his staff and he had depended on her to smooth out numerous problems between his company and the palace in those first few weeks.

How much the Crown Prince Andreas and the Daredevil Nikandros relied on her.

His frown deepened as her slim hand went around Angelina.

She whispered something and instantly his daughter’s expression cleared. A hesitation emerged in her eyes but Angelina wiped her tears, and then to Gabriel’s shock, a tentative smile curved her mouth.

A tight ache emerged in the nether regions of Gabriel’s heart. Three months with a string of nannies each more expensive and efficient than the next, three months of gifts and presents to make up for twelve birthdays, three months of fighting the urge to tell her that it was not his fault, not once had Angelina looked at him with anything remotely bordering on the affection in her eyes as she looked at Eleni Drakos now.

What magic had the Princess wrought on his child? To what purpose? When had Angelina become acquainted with her?

Shock buffeted him in fresh waves when Eleni softly nudged Angelina toward him.

The wariness in his daughter’s eyes dealt a swift kick to his gut more painful and wretched than anything Gabriel had faced before. But for the life of him, he hadn’t been able to forge even a tenuous connection between them.

It was as if fate was laughing at him.

He’d willfully become this man who avoided emotional entanglement at any cost. Now, try as he might, it seemed he couldn’t connect with his own daughter.

“I’m sorry,” Angelina whispered, her eyes bright and big.

She didn’t call him Papa but he knew better than to expect a miracle. She turned to the Princess as if waiting for another cue, as if she could only bear to do this small thing—look at him without hatred—for the Princess.

Breath balled up in his throat, for he’d never felt this strange anticipation.

Hands firmly on those small shoulders, the Princess gave his daughter a cue.

Again, something about her smile snagged him while she and Angelina walked toward him. That his daughter, who treated him as if he were plague-ridden, had found someone to connect with should have been a good thing.

Instead, all he felt was a yawning chasm in the pit of his stomach.

“Now, Angelina,” the Princess said, and her voice shivered over his spine. The taste of her came to his lips, his hands fisting against the sensation of her curved hips. It was a sensation he hadn’t been able to get out of his head in three months, even as he’d become more and more aware of her husky, low-pitched voice, of the way her dress shirts seemed voluptuous on her body, of the tug of her mouth on one side when she was being sarcastic, of her every movement. Of the fact that she’d avoided meeting his eyes since that night at the masquerade ball.

No woman had ever messed with his head quite so much by trying to ignore him.

I just wanted a kiss, Gabriel.

Had she?

And now here she was with a wide smile bestowed on his daughter.

Muddy brown eyes glinted with warmth, the edges of them tilting up, revealing hints of heritage no one, he was sure, knew about.

The smile seemed to spread to her entire body as she looked at Angelina. It snagged his attention, and every other man’s attention, he noted with a flare of annoyance.

“Remember what we talked about,” she said. “First we express our anger and hurt in a constructive way instead of hurling accusations at someone, however well deserved they may be.”

His daughter nodded like an angel, lifting her chin in a show of condescension toward him. That put-upon anger and the skinny shoulders pretending to be so unaffected, caused Gabriel to feel a realization slam into him: hateful words or not, his daughter was very much just a kid.

And he wouldn’t have seen it if not for the woman silently glaring at him over Angie’s furiously nodding head. Her judgment of him was clear in her deepening frown.

“You went on your trip again. You not only left me with that...horrible nanny, but you also forgot my birthday. Mom would’ve never...” A choked sound emerged from Angie’s throat. “Mom told me you didn’t live with us because you were a busy man. Not because you didn’t care about me. But now... I know she was lying to protect me. It’s clear that you never wanted a daughter.”

Pushing away the Princess’s hand from her shoulder, Angie ran out of the boardroom, leaving a minefield of silence behind.

No, he’d never wanted a daughter. He hadn’t been in a relationship with her mother, which he thought was why she’d never told him.

And yet when he’d seen Angelina for the first time, Gabriel had known his life had forever changed. To his own surprise, he hadn’t felt an ounce of resentment.

He’d only wanted to welcome her into his life.

But Angelina wouldn’t give him a chance. Frustration and fury twisted inside him.

He took a few steps in her direction when he heard the soft command.

“Leave her alone, Mr. Marquez.” A pregnant pause, as if the Princess couldn’t believe her own audacity. “For now. Please. Don’t force her to take back those words just because your ego is smarting.”

A burning feeling emerged in his throat and Gabriel realized it was shame.

The Princess was right. He was only thinking about how this affected him, how he wanted to fight the tug of failure.

He’d moved mountains and built castles, immersed himself in the world’s real estate games, and yet he didn’t possess a single thing that would bring his daughter closer to him.

With one nod, he dismissed the meeting. He watched the quick shuffling of papers on the dark mahogany desk, heard the whisper of chairs as if it were all a background score, his attention fixed on the woman he had forced himself to ignore for three months.

And utterly failed.

He didn’t want to have anything to do with this woman who’d made it so easy to unburden himself. Who had, for the first time in his adult life, made him question his choices, his very lifestyle. Made him wonder about the depth of love his father had nurtured for his mother, before it had destroyed him.

* * *

She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. She shouldn’t have confronted him. She definitely shouldn’t have chastised him as if he were a negligent staff member.

Eleni sighed as her hands brushed against her soft leather bag.

Now he’d probably forbid Angelina from even seeing her. And while she’d miss Angelina with an ache, it would be so much worse for the little girl.

Only last week had Angelina started opening up to Eleni, since she’d come to see that Eleni had no hidden agenda that involved her father.

And now, because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, because she couldn’t bear to be ignored by Gabriel again, Angelina would lose the only adult she’d come to trust.

The hair on her nape stood in prickles as the room emptied around her.

Vibrating with a tension she couldn’t dispel, she straightened from the table. Gabriel Marquez stood at the corner of the room, a silent specter studying her with hair-raising intensity. “You’re full of neat little tricks, Princesa.”

Eleni stiffened. “I have nothing to say to you.”

He made his way across the room with soft strides for such a big man. Like a jungle cat. “I would say it was the opposite, judging by the looks you sent my way. I would say you were raring to rip into me.”

Eleni tilted her head back, struggling to keep her gaze away from the hard contours of his mouth. His lips had been so soft and demanding against hers. So full of passion and tender warmth. For days afterward, she’d marveled at the paradox of the man’s kiss, which matched the man himself—one moment warm and inviting, and the next cold and ruthless.

“Even the board members now know that you were dying to set me down about Angelina.”

Heat rushed into her cheeks and she struggled to keep her thoughts and her gaze from straying. “I...was trying to defuse the situation without further breaking her—” she flinched as his gaze became chilly “—heart. Even you must agree that Angelina’s feelings are the most important in that scene.”

“Even I?” His taunt was voiced in such a low tone that Eleni had to tilt closer to understand. Instantly, she was suffused in his male scent. Tendrils of warmth settled low in her belly as he reached her. “Explain.”

Any mortification she felt at her body’s alarming reaction to his nearness died at his curt tone. “Don’t bark commands at me.”

His gray eyes were cold and bleak, like a winter sky. “Maybe you think I’m one of the staff you order around with such brisk efficiency, Princesa. It would be in your best interests to remember who I am.”

She tried for a laugh, awareness flooding through her. His hands had traced her hips as if she were a precious treasure. His body had been a fortress of warmth. She couldn’t stop that rush of sensation so she held herself rigid instead. “Like you let anyone forget. This is ridiculous, Mr. Marquez. If you want to say something, then say it.”

He breathed out in a harsh exhale, tension wreathing his features. “Angelina and you have formed a bond.”

“Is there a question in that?” she taunted, ignoring the rational voice that said she was pulling the tail of a tiger.

He hesitated and Eleni saw something in those cold eyes that made her hesitate, rethink her opinion of him. Or at least not to condemn him so easily. “How? When?”

“When what?”

“When did you become close? How did you...have so much access to her?” His frown deepened as he searched her face. “It’s not like you sit around playing the charming socialite in the palace.”

Was he complimenting her or setting her down? Infuriating man! “I... I... The task of setting up quarters and such for the string of nannies you employed for her fell to me. When you disappeared on your long and frequent business trips, the task of making sure they did their job fell to me. I think it was the second one. Or the third. The poor woman couldn’t find Angelina one day for hours and raised an alarm.

“You were in... Sydney, I think. Since you brought her to Drakon,” she couldn’t resist adding, “I noticed that Angelina always drifts toward the stables. I found her there that afternoon, hiding in my mare’s stall. Angelina loves horses—did you know that? I invited her to spend some time during the day with me at the stables. And we...we got close,” she finished, her face a swath of color.

Somehow, spending time with Angelina had become the high point of her day. Had filled the gaping hole in her life after her father’s death and Andreas’s uncharacteristic departure.

“But what did you do? And why? I want to know what you did to get so close to her, Ms. Drakos.”

He looked so befuddled that Eleni bit back her temper and sighed. “I didn’t do it for some nefarious purpose.”

He ran his hands through his hair, tight grooves etching around his mouth. “I’m not accusing you,” he said, though his tone did just that. “I’m curious as to what you did, what techniques you employed, what...incentives you offered to get close to Angelina.”

“She’s not a business deal you’re trying to close,” she burst out, remembering her own confusion at that age.

“I have never lost a business deal in my life.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She exhaled roughly and willed herself to be patient. For that twelve-year-old, if not for the arrogant Spaniard in front of her.

For three months, she’d tried to pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened. That it hadn’t been the most glorious moment of her life, even when he’d pushed her away with such apparent disgust. That her heart didn’t speed up every time she laid eyes on him.

That she didn’t hope in the farthest corners of her heart that he would look at her with that passion in his eyes again, that he would see her as a woman and not as a part of the palace machinery. That he would kiss her again, just one more time.

But no.

Five layers of makeup, a dress that displayed every curve and a sign around her neck that said she was willing and wanton. And of course, her identity hidden behind a mask.

That was the only way he would want her apparently.

She swallowed away the disappointment as she always did, tired of her own pathetic longing. There were years of his company’s work still to be done in Drakon. Was she going to spend the next decade mooning over one kiss that meant nothing to him, like she had mourned the last decade over Spiros and his vows of undying devotion, even after he’d disappeared like mist?

“Angelina, for all that she’s been forced to grow up in the past few months, is a little girl. With feelings and emotions. She lost the one person who loved her unconditionally. She’s been thrust into an unfamiliar world with a man—”

“It has been eight months since her mother died.”

“Eight months is an entire lifetime for her. You can’t just...buy her things and expect everything to be all right. You can’t just slot into her life and expect her to love you like she did her mother. Not by leaving her with a string of nannies. Not by engaging her in a battle of wills. And definitely not by demanding her affection and love.”

“Those nannies came highly recommended with years of experience in dealing with kids.”

“But not a single one of them tried to understand her. It was all just schedules and milestones and you can’t just ignore...” She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat.

He tucked a finger under her chin and tilted it up. “I can’t just ignore what?”

She wished she could hide the expression in her eyes. Erase the hurt from that corner of her heart that never seemed to heal. “You can’t fix the loss of her mom by throwing her into the deep end. She’s among strangers in a foreign country and she barely sees you. She...she told me last week that she wanted to run away because of what that ghastly girlfriend of yours told her.”

If he wasn’t holding her chin in his hands, she would have missed his flinch. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s an ex. She...said she had experience with kids...that she could help me connect with Angelina.”

Now she understood the lineup of exes and “girlfriends” that had been appearing outside his office in the last few weeks. It had taken every ounce of her willpower not to march in there and demand that he send them away. For Angelina’s sake.

“Could you not see that they were just using Angelina like some stepping stone toward you?”

She saw it sink in. His jaw tightened. “And you, Princesa? You do not have any purpose?”

His gaze promptly fell to her mouth, a languid stroke against her senses. “I told you—I have no designs on you.”

“You knew who I was and yet you still kissed me.”

“Because my requirements for that night were to kiss a man. You fit the bill. If you hadn’t ripped my mask off, I’d have been on my way and no one—”

“If I hadn’t ripped the mask off—” his harsh breath purred over her cheeks “—I would have been inside you, right on that balcony, with your brother and half the world watching.”

Gravelly and low, his words rippled over her skin. Places she shouldn’t be thinking of throbbed with need. “Ripping off the mask was the only sensible thing that happened that night.”

“I would have—” she licked her lips as if that could stave off the heat pouring through her “—stopped you. It wouldn’t have gone that far.”

His gaze held hers, amusement and something else glittering there. “Either you’re very naive about men or you just like to lie to yourself.” A rough exhale left his mouth. “And now I find you, of all the people in my life, bonded with my daughter.”

Eleni pushed away from him, needing respite from that overwhelming masculinity. Respite from her own reactions. “Even your conceit can’t be that great to think I befriended Angelina with some...underhanded intentions. Sitting in the stables by herself, she reminded me of myself.”

“A Princess of Drakon, daughter to King Theos and sister to powerful Andreas and Nikandros—and I’m to believe you understand how Angelina feels? That you have to hide beneath a mask to find a man to kiss you?”

She shrugged, the gleam of interest in his eyes making her heart thud faster. If not for Angelina, he wouldn’t have spared her a single glance again, much less a conversation.

“I don’t care what you believe about me. Angelina needs to feel like she’s important to someone, like there’s some constant in her life that won’t desert her. She’s a sweet girl underneath all that bluster.”

“She’s sweet with you,” he bit out, a vein vibrating in his forehead. “The first time I saw my daughter was at her mother’s funeral. It took her a week to understand that I was indeed her father and not some terrifying stranger who was ripping her away from everything familiar. I learned after my ex was in an accident that she had named me as Angelina’s father.

“In three months, she hasn’t stopped looking at me as if I...were the culprit.

“My own daughter looks at me as if I...” He swallowed hard and looked away. “I’ve tried to be gentle with her... I’ve tried gifts. I’ve tried everything under the sun but not a damn thing works.”

Eleni hoped for the little girl’s sake that he would learn to express that concern. To show that he cared. But she’d been around too many thickheaded men, and Gabriel Marquez had proved that night that he was the king of arrogant ruthlessness and wouldn’t recognize tender emotion if it hit him in that all too gorgeous face.