It made him angry, this change in her. Made him angry that she couldn’t be like his other women … happy to shop and visit salons and spas and just enjoy being spoiled, enjoy the prestige of being Drakon Xanthis’s pampered wife. It was good enough for his other women. Why not for her?

Why did Morgan want more? More to the point, what did she want from him?

He’d never told her—or anyone—but in his mind, she’d become like his mother. Drakon loved his mother, he was a dutiful son, but he didn’t want to be around her, and that’s what happened with Morgan. Morgan made him feel inadequate and he dealt with it by avoiding her.

And then one day Morgan disappeared, abruptly returning to America, and he had exploded.

How could she have just walk away from him like that? How could she give up? How dare she give up? He hadn’t been happy all those years ago, but he hadn’t walked away from her. He hadn’t felt the magic, either, but he wasn’t a quitter—

And then it struck him. He had quit on her. Maybe he hadn’t physically left, but he’d checked out emotionally.

And only now he could see that her needs hadn’t been so overwhelming. She hadn’t asked for that much. But the fact that she’d asked for anything—time, tenderness, reassurance—had triggered the worst in him, and he’d reacted like the boy he’d once been, retreating, hiding, rejecting.

He’d given her money but not affection.

He’d given her toys but not his heart.

He’d given her stuff … as long as she didn’t engage him, want him, need him. Don’t bother him because he couldn’t, wouldn’t, deal with anyone else’s problems—he had plenty of his own.

Ah.

And there it was. The ugly, ugly truth.

Drakon Xanthis was a selfish, shallow, stunted man. A man that looked strong on the outside but was just an angry child on the inside. And that’s when he knew, that he’d wronged Morgan … badly. Cruelly. He’d taken a twenty-two-year-old woman from her home and her country and dropped her into his white marble house and told her to be silent and to not feel and to not need. To not express emotion, to not reach out, to not cry, to not talk, to not be human.

My God.

He’d done to her what his mother had done to him. Be there, Drakon, but do not need. Be present, Drakon, but do not feel….

Five years ago Drakon went in search of Morgan, seeking to right the wrongs, but she was gone. She’d vanished … completely disappeared … and his anger with himself grew. He’d loved Morgan and he’d treated her so badly. He’d taken the person who loved him, wanted him, the real him—the man, not the name, the bank account, the status—and crushed her.

He’d broken her.

He knew it. And all he’d wanted was to find her, apologize, fix everything. And he couldn’t. Morgan was gone again. And Drakon was shattered. Until she came back, until he could make things right, he was a man in hell.