She swallowed around the lump filling her throat. “And yet when Bronwyn called you at home, you’d talk to her for hours.”

“Not for hours.”

“For thirty minutes at a time. Over and over every night.”

“We had business to discuss.”

“And could nothing wait until the morning? Was everything really a crisis? Or could she just not make a decision without you?”

“Is that why you left me? Because of Bronwyn?”

Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, yes, yes. But in her heart she knew Bronwyn Harper was only part of the issue. Drakon’s close relationship with his Australian vice president only emphasized how lonely and empty Morgan felt with him. “Bronwyn’s constant presence in our lives didn’t help matters. Every time I turned around, she was there, and you did talk to her, whereas you didn’t talk to me.”

The fight abruptly left her, and once her anger deserted her, she was exhausted and flattened, depressed by a specter of what they had been, and the illusion of what she’d hoped they’d be. “But it’s a moot point now. It doesn’t matter—” She broke off. “My God! You’re doing it now. Rolling your eyes! Looking utterly bored and annoyed.”

“I’m frustrated, Morgan, and yes, I do find this entire conversation annoying because you’re putting words in my mouth, telling me how I felt, and I’m telling you I didn’t feel that way when we were married.”

“Don’t you remember telling me repeatedly that you had people—women—talking at you at work, and that you didn’t need me talking at you at home? Don’t you remember telling me, you preferred silence—”

“I remember telling you that once, because I did come home one day needing quiet, and I wanted you to know it wasn’t personal, and that I wasn’t upset with you, that it had simply been a long day with a lot of people talking at me.” He walked toward her, his gaze hard, his expression forbidding. “And instead of you being understanding, you went into hysterics, crying and raging—”

“I wasn’t hysterical.”

“You had no right to be upset, though.” He was standing before her now. “I’d just lost two members of my crew from a hijacked ship and I’d had to tell the families that their loved ones were gone and it was a bad, bad day. A truly awful day.”

“Then tell me next time that something horrific has happened, and I’ll understand, but don’t just disappear into your office and give me the silent treatment.”

“I shouldn’t have to talk if I don’t want to talk.”

“I was your wife. If something important happens in your world, I’d like to know.”

“It’s not as if you could do anything.”

“But I could care, Drakon, and I would at least know what’s happening in your life and I could grieve for the families of your crew, too, because I would have grieved, and I would have wanted to comfort you—”

“I don’t need comforting.”

“Clearly.” Hot, sharp emotions rushed through her, one after the other, and she gave her head a fierce, decisive shake. “Just as you clearly didn’t need me, either, because you don’t need anything, Drakon Xanthis. You’re perfect and complete just the way you are!”