What about her?

What about what she needed? What she wanted? What about her emotions or her comfort?

The back of her eyes burned and she jerked her chin higher. “Well, I’m sorry you don’t like seeing me like this, but this is who I am. Desperate. And I’m willing to take desperate measures to help my family. You don’t understand what it’s like for us. My family is in pain. Everyone is hurting, heartsick with guilt and shame and confusion—how could my father do what he did? How could he not know Amery wasn’t investing legitimately? How could he not protect his clients … his friends … his family? My sisters and brother—we can’t even see each other anymore, Drakon. We don’t speak to each other. We can’t handle the shame of it all. We’re outcasts now. Bottom feeders. Scum. So fine, stand there and mock me with your principles. I’m just trying to save what I can. Starting with my father’s life.”

“Your father isn’t worth it. But you are. Stop worrying about him, Morgan, and save yourself.”

“And how do I do that, Drakon? Have you any advice for me there?”

“Yes. Come home.”

“Home?”

“Yes, home to me—”

“You’re not home, Drakon. You were never home.”

She saw him flinch and she didn’t like it, but it was time he knew the truth. Time he heard the truth. “You asked me a little bit ago why I’d want to forget our sex life, and I’ll tell you. I don’t like remembering. It hurts remembering.”

“Why? It was good. No, it was great. We were unbelievable together—”

“Yes, yes, the sex was hot. And erotic. You were an incredibly skillful lover. You could make me come over and over, several times a day. But that’s all you gave me. Your name, a million-dollar diamond wedding ring and orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms. But there was no relationship, no communication, no connection. I didn’t marry you to just have sex. I married you to have a life, a home. Happiness. But after six months of being married to you, all I felt was empty, isolated and deeply unhappy.”

She held his gaze, glad she’d at last said what she’d wanted to say all those years ago, and yet fully aware that these revelations changed nothing. They were just the final nail in a coffin that had been needing to be sealed shut. “I was so unhappy I could barely function, and yet there you were, touching me, kissing me, making me come. I’d cry after I came. I’d cry because it hurt me so much that you could love my body and not love me.”

“I loved you.”

“You didn’t.”

“You can accuse me of being a bad husband, of being cold, of being insensitive, but don’t tell me how I felt, because I know how I felt. And I did love you. Maybe I didn’t say it often—”

“Or ever.”

“But I thought you knew.”

“Clearly, I didn’t.”