The Drakon Baby Bargain(16)

And the video... Christos, she wanted to slap whoever had shot it and quietly handed it to Gabriel.

In fact, she wanted to give a piece of her mind to all of them—the imbecile who had sneaked up on her and shot it; Spiros, who’d been half-delirious; ending with her husband, who blew hot and cold in the space of a minute.

Was it his ego that had been bruised or had Gabriel truly wanted her with that craving she’d seen in his eyes last night?

Was it her he didn’t trust?

Or women in general?

Would she be left in a limbo once again, tied to a man who didn’t want her, but now spoken for? Married but never a wife?

Mother to Angelina but not even the possibility of another child?

The darker her thoughts went, the tighter her throat became until she was angry with herself.

Self-pity had never solved anything for her.

She pushed away the duvet and got to her feet. Ordering a coffee, she quickly brushed her teeth, washed up. When breakfast arrived, she ordered it to be arranged on her balcony.

From up here, she had a view of the beautiful gardens that Mia tended to and the riot of color there pushed her spirits up. She grabbed her tablet and began to make a list of things she had to accomplish that day. Nothing was unconquerable as long as she was in action.

First, she’d have to make sure Angelina wasn’t still upset over yesterday.

Second, she’d have to see if Mia needed any help.

Then, she’d have to check with Nik and see if he’d heard anything from Andreas.

Sighing, she continued to add items to the list—at this rate it would be at least a year before she could approach Gabriel again—and finished her coffee.

A staff member brought her a white envelope. Reaching for it, she frowned. “What is it?”

“One of the palace staff said it was given to her by a man and asked to be specifically given to you.”

Eleni thanked her and opened the note inside.

Eleni,

I’m sorry for frightening you like that. But seeing you as another man’s bride was torture for me, pethi mou. I saw the same shock and hope in your eyes.

This time no one will separate us. This time I intend to claim you for my own. Neither your brothers nor your husband scare me. Not anymore.

Wait for me, my love.

Yours,

Spiros

Cold sweat trickled down her nape stealing the warmth of the sun.

Why was Spiros writing to her like this? What the hell did he mean no one could separate them this time? Did he think she was anything but shocked out of her mind to see him?

She needed to talk to him. Find out why he had left her like that last time. Find out why he thought she would welcome him with open arms when he hadn’t had the decency to approach her for so many years.

It was only in the past two years that she’d finally looked to the future. Only with Andreas’s help, even before her father’s death, that she’d realized that she didn’t have to spend her life grieving over a man who hadn’t looked back.

And just when she had reached for a future, there was Spiros.

The shock of seeing him yesterday now gave way to other questions.

Why now? Why was he writing to her like this? Where had he been and what did he want from her? And why was it all cloaked in such mystery? Annoyed beyond measure, she tore the letter into small pieces. Found a vicious satisfaction in the childish act.

She added “Move On” to her bullet points and sighed. If only it were as easy as that.

A long shadow fell on her tablet blocking her view and Eleni looked up.

“Move on from what?”

His gravelly voice played a chord in that place between her thighs. Steady heat climbed up Eleni’s cheeks.

Dressed in black trousers and a long-sleeved gray shirt that made his eyes gleam doubly, Gabriel was watching her. His jaw was clean shaven, his hair wet and slicked back.

Belatedly, Eleni moved her hand over her tablet. “That list is private.”

Her breath left her afresh as the breeze carried the scent of soap and skin from him to her.

Ruggedly masculine and gorgeous, he made her mouth dry and her heart ache in her chest. The platinum ring she had placed on his unfamiliar finger gleamed bright in the sun.

A symbol of their relationship, of his commitment to her. She looked down at her own hand and her own ring. The sapphire winked at her, mocking her.

So much for thinking he was much more approachable and easygoing than her father or her older brother, Andreas. “Is there something you needed?” she said, determined to be civil.

His gaze stayed somewhere on her shoulder so she tilted her own head to see what. Her silk robe had slipped off her shoulder, and the morning sun showed the startling bruise his mouth had left on the upper swell of her breast.

Eleni blushed furiously just as his fingers circled her nape and tugged her closer. When the pad of his thumb moved over the purple mark, a sliver of pain made her gasp. A shard of pleasure shot through to her core, making her damp.

Pain and pleasure, he’d given her both yesterday. He hadn’t been able to help himself, she realized now, as she felt the solid strength of him surround her. The idea of a helpless Gabriel, a Gabriel who was a slave to his need for her—it unleashed a sense of power that she’d never quite known.

Was she being delusional yet again?

When she leaned into him just so that the tip of her breasts brushed his muscular arm, she felt the faint shudder that traversed his huge body. Mirth bubbled up in her chest.

He was not immune to her, she realized with unabashed curiosity. He didn’t trust her, he didn’t want to want her, but this gorgeous, powerful man did want her. Suddenly, the dynamic between them was more fluid. Less absolute.

Like she too had a say in where this convenient marriage of theirs went. Was that why his reaction had been so out of character? “Gabriel,” she finally said, locking her fingers around his wrist. Tension filled his body, permeating through to her.

“I did that?” he asked, his voice male and low.

Her temper flared. “Yes, just as it was you who put me in a temper, Gabriel. Not the man in the video.”

A blank mask fell over the expression in his eyes again. With such thick lashes, no wonder she could never make out what he was thinking. “I apologize.”

“For thinking I had gone to bed with another man in the hours between the reception and our wedding night? Or for taking that as a challenge and proving that you could still seduce me? Did it soothe your ego to know that you have that power over me? Is it that old ‘I don’t want you but my ego will chafe if you so much as look at another man’ thing?”

Gabriel blanched, knowing that every word out of her mouth was true. He didn’t have an excuse for his behavior.

Even in the corrosive anger that filled him at the thought of that video, he had been a beast to her. He had seduced her, brought her to that raw precipice of pleasure just to prove that she was putty in his hands.

She had called him on it too. The depth of his own bitterness when he’d always breezed through his relationships with women disconcerted him.

Maybe because he’d fallen for the act. Maybe he’d assumed her to be a saint, just because she was such a good mother figure to Angelina.

Maybe the damned woman had got beneath his skin.

Whatever it was, he had never lost control of himself like that. Never had his emotions been in such a riot.

Cheeks flushed with sleep, hair mussed, she looked like a red-blooded male’s wet dream. As if all her beauty had needed to bloom into such voluptuousness was a man’s touch. His touch.

Even now, all he wanted was to pull her to him and kiss her. To taste her mouth that trembled in such anger. To strip that flimsy robe and nightgown from her body and see the glory of her full curves in sunlight. To mark her again and again until she was covered in the scent of him. Until she forgot every other man.

“I have no excuse for my behavior,” he finally said, meeting her soft gaze. “I should not have laid a finger on you last night.”

Her shoulders fell on a long exhale. The lines of her face softened and she looked up at him. Her skin glowed with that golden sheen but there were dark shadows under her intelligent eyes. “Since you’re determined to be bloody-minded, it falls to me to be the sensible one. To explain.”

Gabriel wanted to leave. To not delve further into the woman who was clearly messing with his head. To keep their arrangement strictly platonic, her demands be damned. And yet, he was aware that he would not.

That the identity of that blasted man in that video and what he meant to her would haunt him, leaving him useless for anything else.

“I did give you a chance, Princesa. You lied.”

Pink filled her sun-kissed cheeks. She licked her lips, looked up and her eyes widened at whatever she saw in his gaze. He didn’t care what. A low hum had already begun in his muscles as he took in the silken way her nightgown clung to her curves.

God, she’d been a dream in his hands last night.

“I... I was in shock.” She sat down and looked at her fisted hands in her lap. “I hadn’t seen him in ten years. For a minute there on the dance floor, I thought him a ghost.”

“You had more than two hours for your heartwarming reunion  , Princesa. Two hours to process it.”

“Have you never hidden something humiliating from others, Gabriel? Or were you born like this—invulnerable and hard-hearted?”

“Tell me about him, Eleni. And the truth this time.”