Drakon immediately flew to New York to see her, going straight from the airport to her boutique, hoping that’s where he’d find her at 11:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Before he even stepped from his limousine, she walked out the shop’s front door with her youngest sister, Jemma. At first glance they looked like any glamorous girls about town, slim and chic, with long gleaming hair and their skin lightly golden from expensive spray-on tans, but after that first impression of beauty and glamour, he saw how extremely thin Morgan was, dangerously thin. She looked like a skeleton in her silk tunic and low-waisted trousers. Wide gold bangles covered her forearms, and Drakon wondered if it was an attempt to hide her extreme slenderness, or perhaps accent her physique?

He didn’t know, wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The only thing he knew for certain was that she didn’t look well and he was baffled by the change in her.

He let her go, leaving her with Jemma, and had his driver take him to her father’s building on 53rd and Third Avenue. Daniel Copeland could barely hide his shock at seeing Drakon Xanthis in his office, but welcomed him cordially—he was, after all, taking care of Drakon’s investment—and asked him to have a seat.

“I saw Morgan today,” Drakon had said bluntly, choosing not to sit. “What’s wrong with her? She doesn’t look well.”

“She hasn’t been well,” Daniel answered just as bluntly.

“So what’s wrong with her?” he repeated.

“That’s her business.”

“She’s my wife.”

“Only because you won’t let her go.”

“I don’t believe in divorce.”

“She’s not happy with you, Drakon. You need to let her go.”

“Then she needs to come tell me that herself.” He’d left Daniel’s office after that, and for several weeks he’d expected a call from Morgan, expected an email, something to say she was ready to meet with him.

But she didn’t contact him. And he didn’t reach out to her. And the impasse had continued until three days ago when Morgan had called him, and requested a meeting. She’d told him up front why she wanted to see him. She made it clear that this had nothing to do with them, or their marriage, but her need for a loan, adding that she was only coming to him because no one else would help her.

You are my last resort, she’d said. If you don’t help me, no one will.

He’d agreed to see her, telling her to meet him here, at Villa Angelica. He’d thought perhaps by meeting here, where they’d embarked on their married life, they could come to an understanding and heal the breach. Perhaps face-to-face here, where they had been happy, he could persuade Morgan to return to Athens. It was time. He wanted children, a family. He wanted his wife back where she was supposed to be—in his home, at his side.

Now he realized there was no hope, there never had been, and he felt stupid and angry.