“You should have told me immediately that you’d given the Somali pirates ransom money and that they’d failed to release your father.”

“I thought you might not have helped me, if you knew….” Her voice faded as Drakon closed the distance between them. He was so alive, so electric, she could almost see little sparks shooting off him. Her heart pounded. Her tummy did another nervous, panicked flip.

She shouldn’t have sent away the helicopter. She should have gone while she could. Now it was too late to run. Too late to save herself, and so she stared at him, waited for him, feeling the energy, his energy, that dizzying combination of warmth and heat, light and sparks. This was inevitable. He was inevitable. She could run and run and run, but part of her knew she’d never escape him. She’d run before and yet here she was. Right back where they’d honeymooned, Villa Angelica.

She’d known that coming here, to him, would change everything. Would change her.

It always did.

It already had.

Her legs trembled beneath her. Her heart pounded. Even now, after all these years, she felt almost sick with awareness, need. This chemistry and energy between them was so overwhelming. So consuming. She didn’t understand it, and she’d wanted to understand it, if only to help her exorcise him from her heart and her mind.

But all the counselors and doctors and therapists in the world hadn’t erased this … him.

Why was Drakon so alive? Why was he more real to her than any other man she’d ever met? After Drakon, after loving Drakon, there could be no one else … he made it impossible for her to even look at anyone else.

He’d reached her, was standing before her, his gaze fierce, intense, as it traveled across her face, making her feel so bare, and naked. Heat bloomed in her skin, blood surging from his close inspection.

“What did you do, Morgan?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve sold everything,” he added harshly. “You have nothing and even if you get your father back to the United States, you’ll still have nothing.”

“Not true,” she said, locking her knees, afraid she’d collapse, overwhelmed by emotion and memories, overwhelmed by him. She’d been up for two days straight. Hadn’t eaten more than a mouthful in that time. She couldn’t, knowing she would soon be here, with him again. “I’d have peace of mind.”

“Peace of mind?” he demanded. “How can you have peace of mind when you have no home?”

He could mock her, because he didn’t know what it was like to lose one’s mind. He didn’t know that after leaving him, she’d ended up in the hospital and had remained there for far too long. It had been the lowest point in her life, and by far, the darkest part. But she didn’t want to think about McLean Hospital now, that was the past, and she had to live in the present, had to stay focused on what was important, like her father. “I did what I had to do.”