Rumours: The Dishonoured Copelands: The Fallen Greek Bride (The Disgraced Copelands) / His Defiant Desert Queen (The Disgraced Copelands) / Her Sinful Secret (The Disgraced Copelands)

Which led to another question—had he ever been that much in control, too? Or had she turned him into something he wasn’t? Her imagination making him into an intimidating and controlling man because she felt so out of control?

God, she hoped not. But there was no time to mull over the past. She’d reached Drakon’s side and felt another electric jolt as his gaze met hers and held. She couldn’t look away from the warmth in his amber eyes. Part of him still burned and it made her want to burn with him. Madness, she told herself, don’t go there, don’t lose yourself, and yet the air hummed with heat and desire.

How could she not respond to him?

How could she not want to be close to him when he was so fiercely alive?

“It’s going to be all right,” he murmured, his deep voice pitched so low only she could hear.

Her lovely, lovely man that made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the entire world. Her lovely, lovely man that had pushed her to the brink, and beyond, and he still didn’t know … still had no idea where she’d been that first year after leaving him, or what had happened to her trying to separate herself from him.

Part of her wanted to tell him, and yet another part didn’t want to give him that knowledge, or power. Because he could break her. Absolutely destroy her. And she wasn’t strong enough yet to rebuild herself again … not yet. Not on top of everything else that had happened to her father and her family with the Amery scandal.

“I promise you,” he added.

She heard his fierce resolve and her heart turned over. This is how she’d fallen in love with him—his strength, his focus, his determination. That and the way he smiled at her … as if she were sunshine and oxygen all rolled into one. “Yes,” she murmured, aware that once upon a time he’d been everything to her … her hope, her happiness, her future. She missed those days. Missed feeling as if she belonged somewhere with someone.

There was a flicker in his eyes, and then he made the introductions. “Morgan, this is Rowan Argyros, of Dunamas. Rowan, my wife, Morgan Copeland Xanthis.”

Morgan forced her attention from Drakon to the stranger and her jaw nearly dropped. This was Rowan Argyros? This was one of the founders of Dunamas Maritime Intelligence?

Her brows tugged. She couldn’t mask her surprise. Argyros wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

She’d imagined Drakon’s intelligence expert to look like one, and she’d pictured a man in his forties, maybe early fifties, who was stocky, balding, with a square jaw and pugilistic nose.

Instead Rowan Argyros looked like a model straight off some Parisian runway. He was gorgeous. Not her type at all, but her sister Logan would bed him in a heartbeat.

Tall and broad-shouldered, Argyros was muscular without any bulk. He was very tan, and his eyes were light, a pale gray or green, hard to know exactly in the diffused light of the ballroom. His dark brown hair was sun-streaked and he wore it straight and far too long for someone in his line of work. His jaw was strong, but not the thick bulldog jaw she’d come to associate with testosterone-driven males, but more angular … elegant, the kind of face that would photograph beautifully, although today that jaw was shadowed with a day-old beard.

“Mrs. Xanthis,” Rowan said, extending a hand to her.

It bothered her that he hadn’t even bothered to shave for their meeting, and she wondered how this could be the man who would free her father?

Rowan Argosy looked as if he’d spent his free time hanging out on obscenely big yachts off the coast of France, not planning daring, dangerous life-saving missions.

She shook his hand firmly and let it go quickly. “Mr. Argyros,” she said crisply. “I would love to know what you know about my father. Drakon said you have information.”

“I do,” Rowan said, looking her straight in the eye, his voice hard, his expression as cool and unfriendly as hers.

Morgan’s eyebrows lifted. Nice. She liked his frosty tone, and found his coldness and aloofness reassuring. She wouldn’t have trusted him at all if he’d been warm and charming. Military types … intelligence types … they weren’t the touchy-feely sort. “Is he alive?”

“He is. I have some film of him taken just this morning.”

“How did you get it?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.” And her legs felt like Jell-O and she took a step back, sitting down heavily in one of the chairs grouped behind them. Her heart was thudding so hard and fast she thought she might be sick and she drew great gulps of air, fighting waves of nausea and intense relief. Dad was alive. That was huge. “Thank God.”

For a moment there was just silence as Morgan sat with the news, overwhelmed that her father was indeed alive. After a moment, when she could trust herself to speak, she looked up at Rowan. “And he’s well? He’s healthy?”

He hesitated. “We don’t know that. We only have his location, and evidence that he is alive.”

So Dad could be sick. He probably didn’t have his heart medicine with him. It’d probably been left behind on his boat. “What happens now?” she asked.

“We get your father out, take him to wherever you want him to go.”

“How does that happen, though?”

“We’re going to have you call your contact, the one in Somalia you’ve been dealing with, and you’re going to ask to speak to your father. You’ll tell them you need proof that he’s alive and well if they are to get the six million dollars.”

“They won’t let me speak to him. I tried that before.”

“They will,” Drakon interjected, arms folded across his chest, the shirt molded to his sculpted torso, “if they think you’re ready to make a drop of six million.”

She looked at him. “What if they call our bluff? Wouldn’t we have to be prepared to make the drop?”

“Yes. And we will. We’ll give them a date, a time, coordinates for the drop. We’ll tell them who is making the drop, too.”

“But we’re not dropping any money, are we?” she asked, glancing from him to Rowan and back again.

“No,” said Rowan. “We’re preparing a team right now to move in and rescue your father. But speaking to your father gives us important information, as well as buys us a little more time to put our plan in place.”

She nodded, processing this. “How long until you rescue him?”

“Soon. Seventy-two hours, or less.”

She looked at Rowan, startled. “That is soon.”

“Once we have our plan in place, it’s better to strike fast.” Rowan’s phone made a low vibrating noise and he reached into his pocket and checked the number. “I need to take this call,” he said, walking away.

Morgan exhaled as Rowan exited through the sunroom, into the stairwell that would take him back up to the main level of the villa.

“You okay?” Drakon asked, looking down on her, after Rowan disappeared.

“Things can go wrong,” she said.

“Yes. And sometimes they do. But Dunamas has an impressive track record. Far more successes than failures. I wouldn’t have enlisted their help if I didn’t think they’d succeed.”

She hesitated. “If Rowan’s team didn’t succeed … people could die.”

“People will die even if they do succeed. They’re planning a raid. The pirates are heavily armed. Dunamas’s team will be heavily armed. It’s not going to be a peaceful handover. It’ll be explosive and violent, and yet the team they’re sending are professionals. They’re prepared to do whatever they have to do to get him out alive.”

So some of them—or all of them—could end up dying for her father?

Nauseated all over again, Morgan moved from her chair, not wanting to think of the brave, battle-tested men, men the world viewed as heroic, risking their lives for her father, who wasn’t a hero.

Stomach churning, she pushed open one of the sunroom’s tall arched glass doors and stepped onto the terrace, into the sunshine. She drank in a breath of fresh air, and then another. Was she being selfish, trying to save her father? Should she not do this?

Panic and guilt buffeted her as she leaned against the terrace’s creamy marble balustrade and squeezed her eyes closed.

Drakon had followed her outside. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer immediately, trying to find the right words, but what were those words? How did one make a decision like this? “Am I doing the wrong thing?” she asked. “Am I wrong, trying to save him?”

“I can’t answer that for you. He’s your father. Your family.”

“You know I tried everything before I came to you. I asked everyone for help. No one would help me.”

“Who did you approach?”

“Who didn’t I?” She laughed grimly and glanced out across the terraced gardens with the roses and hedges and the pool and the view of the sea beyond. “I went to London to see Branson, and then to Los Angeles to see Logan, and then to Tori in New York, and back to London, but none of them would contribute money toward Dad’s ransom. They’re all in tight financial straits, and they all have reasons they couldn’t give, but I think they wouldn’t contribute to the ransom because they’re ashamed of Dad. I think they believe I’m wasting money trying to rescue him. Mom even said he’s better off where he is … that people will find it easier to forgive us—his kids—if Dad doesn’t come back.”

“You mean, if the pirates kill him?” Drakon asked.

She nodded.

“Your mother is probably right,” he said.

She shot him a swift glance before pushing away from the railing to pace the length of the terrace. For a long minute she just walked, trying to master her emotions. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe Mom is right, but I don’t care. I don’t care what people think of me. I don’t care if they like me. I care about what’s right. And while what Dad did, just blindly giving Michael the money, wasn’t right, it’s also not right to leave him in Somalia. And maybe the others can write him off, but I can’t.”

She shivered, chilled, even though the sun was shining warmly overhead. “I can’t forget how he taught me to swim and ride a bike and he went to every one of my volleyball games in high school. Dad was there for everything, big and small, and maybe he was a terrible investment advisor, but he was a wonderful father. I couldn’t have asked for better—” Morgan broke off, covering her mouth to stifle a sob. She couldn’t help it, but she missed him, and worried about him, and there was just no way she could turn her back on him now. No way at all.

“I think you have your answer,” Drakon said quietly. “You have to do this. Have to help him. Right or wrong.”

They both turned at the sound of a squeaky gate. Rowan was heading up toward them from the lower garden.

“And if anybody can get your father home, it’s Argyros,” Drakon said.

Morgan wrinkled her nose. “He looks like a drug smuggler.”

The corner of Drakon’s mouth lifted. “He isn’t what one expects. That’s what makes him so successful.”

“As long as you trust him.”

“I do.”

On reaching their side, Rowan announced that his office was now ready for Morgan to try to phone her pirate contact in Somalia. “We have a special line set up that will allow us to record the conversation,” he said. “And my team is standing by now, to listen in on the call.”

“But I can only use my phone,” she answered. “And my number. They know my number—”

“We know. And we can make it appear to look like your number. Today’s technology lets us do just about anything.”

In the villa’s dark-paneled library they attempted the call but no one answered on the other end. Morgan left a message, letting her contact know that she had six million in cash, in used bills, and was ready to make the drop but she wanted to speak to her father first. “I need to know he’s alive,” she said, “and then you’ll have the money.”

She hung up, glanced at Rowan and Drakon. “And now what?”

“We wait for a call back,” Rowan said.

They had a light lunch in the library while waiting, but there was no return call. Morgan wanted to phone again but Rowan said it wasn’t a good idea. “We’re playing a game,” he explained. “It’s their game, but we’re going to outplay them. They just don’t know it yet.”

The afternoon dragged. Morgan hated waiting as it made her restless and anxious. She wanted to hear her father’s voice, and she wanted to hear it sooner than later. After a couple hours, she couldn’t sit still any longer and began to walk in circles. She saw Morgan and Drakon exchange glances.

“What?” she demanded. “Am I not allowed to move out of my chair?”

Drakon smiled faintly. “Come, let’s go get some exercise and fresh air.”

Stretching her legs did sound nice, but Morgan didn’t want to miss the call. “What if the pirate calls back and I’m not here?”

“He’ll leave a message,” Drakon said.

“Won’t he be angry?” she asked.

Rowan shrugged. “They want your money. They’ll call back.”

It was close to four when Morgan and Drakon left the house to walk down to the water, and the afternoon was still bright, and warm, but already the sun was sitting lower in the sky. Morgan took a deep breath, glad to have escaped the dark cool library and be back outside.

“Thank you for getting me out of there,” she said to Drakon as they crossed the lawn, heading for the stone and cement staircase that hugged the cliff and took them down to the little dock, where they used to anchor the speedboat they used to explore the coast.

“You were looking a little pale in there,” Drakon said, walking next to her. “But your father’s going to be all right.”

“If I was pale, it’s because I was thinking about what we did earlier.” Her fingers knotted into fists. “Or what we shouldn’t have done.” She glanced up at him as he opened the second wrought-iron gate, this one at the top of the stairs.

“Which was?” he asked innocently.

She shot him a disbelieving look and his golden brown eyes sparked, the corner of his sexy mouth tugging in a slow, wicked smile and just like that the air was suddenly charged, and Morgan shivered at the sudden snap and crackle of tension and the spike of awareness. God, it was electric between them. And dangerous.

“It can’t happen again,” she whispered, her gaze meeting his.

“No?” he murmured, reaching out to lift a soft tendril of hair back from her cheek, but then he couldn’t let it go and he let the strand slide between his fingers, before curling it loosely around his finger and thumb.

Her breath caught in her throat and she stared up at him, heart pounding, mouth drying. She loved the way he touched her and he was making her weak in the knees now. “It confuses me.”

“Confuses you, how?”

The heat between them was intense. Dizzying. So much awareness, so much desire, so impossible to satisfy. She swayed on her feet and he immediately stepped between her and the edge of the stairs, pressing her up against the wall. “I can’t think around you,” she whispered, feeling his dazzling energy before her, and the sun warmed rock at her back.

“Thinking is overrated,” he murmured, moving in closer to her, brushing his lips across her forehead.

She closed her eyes, breathing in his light clean fragrance and savoring the teasing caress. “Is it?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to think, either?”

She felt the corners of his mouth curve against her brow. He was smiling. And God, didn’t that turn her on?

She locked her knees, her inner thighs clenching, wanting him, needing. Damn him.

“One of us should probably keep our heads,” he answered, his hands cupping her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones. “Less frantic that way.”

“And I suppose you think that should be you?” she breathed, trying to resist the pleasure of his hands pushing deep into her hair, his fingers wrapping around the strands, his knuckles grazing her scalp. He was so good at turning her on, making her feel, and he was making her feel now with a little tug, a touch, and just like that, desire rushed through her … hot, consuming, intense.

“Of course,” he said, leaning in to her, his mouth lightly kissing down from her brow, over her cheekbone, to the soft swell of her lips.

“Why?”

“Because no one has ever loved you the way I loved you.”

Her eyes flew open and she stared into his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. You know how I feel about you. You know I can not refuse you anything.”

“Not true. For five years you refused to grant me the divorce.”

“Because I didn’t want to lose you.”

“Five years is a long time to wait for someone.”

“I would have waited forever for you, Morgan.”

Her heart was pounding again, even harder. “That doesn’t make sense, Drakon. Nothing about this … us … makes sense.”

“Who said love was supposed to make sense?”

She exhaled hard, in a quick, desperate rush, and she had to blink hard to clear her vision. “Did you really love me?”

“How can you doubt it?”

She frowned, thinking, trying to remember. Why had she doubted it? Why had she not felt loved? How did she get from besotted bride to runaway wife?

He reached out, tipped her chin up, so he could look deeper into her eyes. “Morgan, tell me. How could you doubt me?”

“Because after our honeymoon … after we left here … I didn’t feel loved….” Her voice drifted off as she struggled to piece it together. How lost she’d felt in Athens, how confused waiting for him all day, needing him so much that when he walked through the door, she didn’t know if she should run to him, or hide, ashamed for feeling so empty. “But then, after a while, I didn’t feel anything anymore—” She broke off, bit down into her lip, piercing the skin. “No, that’s not true. I did feel something. I felt crazy, Drakon. I felt crazy living with you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

He stepped away from her, turned and faced the sea, then rubbed his palm across the bristles on his jaw.

Morgan watched him just long enough to see the pain in his eyes. She’d hurt him. Again.

Hating herself, hating what they did to each other, she slipped past him and continued down the stairs to the water’s edge.

She had to get out of here. And she had to get out of here soon.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE SWORE SOFTLY, and shook his head.

God, that woman was frustrating. And to think he hadn’t just fallen in love with her, but he’d married her.

Married her.

Long before his wedding day, Drakon had been warned by other men that getting married changed things. He’d been warned that wives—and marriage—were a lot of work. But Drakon hadn’t been daunted. He didn’t mind work. He’d succeeded because he’d always worked hard, put in long hours, never expecting life to be easy.

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