It wasn’t supposed to have gone like this. The meeting today … as well as their marriage. Because she had loved him. She’d loved him with everything she was, everything she had, and it hadn’t been enough. It should have been enough. Why wasn’t it enough? In the beginning she’d thought he was perfect. In the beginning she’d thought she’d found her soul mate. But she was wrong.

Seconds passed, becoming one minute and then another as the helicopter rose higher and higher, straight up so that the villa fell away and the world was all blue and green, with the sea on one side and the sharp, steep mountains on the other and the villa with its famous garden clinging to that bit of space on the rock.

Fighting tears, her gaze fell on the check she still clutched in her hand. Seven million dollars. Just like that.

And she’d known that he’d help her if she went to him. She’d known he’d come through for her, too, because he’d never refused her anything. Drakon might not have given her much of his time or patience, but he’d never withheld anything material from her.

Guilt pummeled her, guilt and fear and anxiety, because she hadn’t accomplished everything she’d come to Villa Angelica to accomplish. She needed more from Drakon than just a check. She needed not just financial assistance, but his help, too. There were few men in the world who had his knowledge of piracy and its impact on the shipping industry. Indeed, Drakon was considered one of the world’s leading experts in counter piracy, and he’d know the safest, quickest method for securing her father’s release, as well as the right people to help her.

Morgan exhaled in a rush, heart beating too hard.

She had to go back. Had to face Drakon again. Had to convince him to help her. Not that he’d want to help her now, not after everything that was said.

But this wasn’t about pride or her ego. This was life and death, her father’s life, specifically, and she couldn’t turn her back on him.

Swallowing her fear and misgivings, Morgan grabbed at her seat belt as if throwing on brakes. “Stop, wait,” she said to the pilot through the small microphone attached to her headphones. “We have to go back. I’ve forgotten something.”

The pilot was too well-trained, and too well-paid, to question her. For a moment nothing seemed to happen and then he shifted and the helicopter began to slowly descend.

Drakon didn’t wait for the helicopter to leave. There was no point. She was gone, and he was glad. While climbing the stairs to his bedroom suite, he heard the helicopter lift, the throbbing of the rotary blades vibrating all the way through the old stone walls.

In his bathroom, Drakon stripped his clothes off and showered, and then dried off, wrapping the towel around his hips and prepared to shave. It would take a while. There was a lot of beard.