Jane Porter - The Fallen Greek Bride

“Help me, Drakon,” Morgan said, her voice pitched low, hoarse. “Do you want me to beg? Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

Her chin lifted and tears sparkled in her eyes, even as her heart burned as if it had been torched with fire. “Am I to go onto my knees in front of you and plead my case?”

He didn’t move a muscle. “I do like you on your knees,” he said cordially.

She drew a ragged breath, locked her knees, praying for strength. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, aware that she was in trouble here, aware that she ought to go. Now. “So on my knees it is,” she said mockingly, lifting the hem of her pale blue skirt to kneel on his limestone floor.

Her mind was whirling, her insides churning. She felt sick, dizzy, off-balance by the contradictions and the intensity and her own desperation.

He had to help her.

He had to.

JANE PORTERgrew up on a diet of Mills & Boon ®romances, reading late at night under the covers so her mother wouldn’t see! She wrote her first book at age eight, and spent many of her high school and college years living abroad, immersing herself in other cultures and continuing to read voraciously. Now Jane splits her time between rugged Seattle, Washington, and the beautiful beaches of Hawaii, with her sexy surfer and three very active sons. Jane loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 524, Bellevue, WA 98009, USA. Or visit her website at www.janeporter.com

Recent titles by the same author:

HIS MAJESTY’S MISTAKE

(A Royal Scandal)

NOT FIT FOR A KING?

(A Royal Scandal)

A DARK SICILIAN SECRET

ONE CHRISTMAS NIGHT IN VENICE

(Short Story)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Randall Toye—

thank you for the friendship and support.

“WELCOME HOME, MY WIFE.”

Morgan froze inside Villa Angelica’s expansive marble and limestone living room with its spectacular floor-to-ceiling view of blue sky and sea, but saw none of the view, and only Drakon’s face.

It had been five years since she’d last seen him. Five and a half years since their extravagant two-million-dollar wedding, for a marriage that had lasted just six months.

She’d dreaded this moment. Feared it. And yet Drakon sounded so relaxed and warm, so normal, as if he were welcoming her back from a little holiday instead of her walking out on him.

“Not your wife, Drakon,” she said softly, huskily, because they both knew she hadn’t been his anything for years. There had been nothing, no word, no contact, not after the flurry of legal missives that followed her filing for divorce.

He’d refused to grant her the divorce and she’d spent a fortune fighting him. But no attorney, no lawsuit, no amount of money could persuade him to let her go. Marriage vows, he’d said, were sacred and binding. She was his. And apparently the courts in Greece agreed with him. Or were bought by him. Probably the latter.

“You are most definitely still my wife, but that’s not a conversation I want to have across a room this size. Do come in, Morgan. Don’t be a stranger. What would you like to drink? Champagne? A Bellini? Something a little stronger?”

But her feet didn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t carry her. Not when her heart was beating so fast. She was shocked by Drakon’s appearance and wondered for a moment if it really was Drakon. Unnerved, she looked away, past his broad shoulders to the wall of window behind him, with that breathtaking blue sky and jagged cliffs and azure sea.

So blue and beautiful today. A perfect spring day on the Amalfi Coast.

“I don’t want anything,” she said, her gaze jerking back to him, although truthfully, a glass of cool water would taste like heaven right now. Her mouth was so dry, her pulse too quick. Her head was spinning, making her dizzy from nerves and anxiety. Who was this man before her?

The Drakon Xanthis she’d married had been honed, sleek and polished, a man of taut, gleaming lines and angles.

This tall intimidating man in front of the picture window was broader in the shoulders and chest than Drakon had ever been, and his thick, inky brown and black hair hung in loose curls to almost his shoulders, while his hard fierce features were hidden by a dark beard. The wild hair and beard should have obscured his sensual beauty, rendered him reckless, powerless. Instead the tangle of hair highlighted his bronzed brow, the long straight nose, the firm mouth, the piercing amber gold eyes.

His hair was still damp and his skin gleamed as if he’d just risen from the sea, the Greek god Poseidon come to life from ancient myth.

She didn’t like it. Didn’t like any of this. She’d prepared herself for one thing, but not this….

“You look pale,” he said, his voice so deep it was almost a caress.

She steeled herself against it. Against him. “It was a long trip.”

“Even more reason for you to come sit.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She hated being here. Hated him for only seeing her here at Villa Angelica, the place where they’d honeymooned for a month following their spectacular wedding. It’d been the happiest month of her life. When the honeymoon was over, they had left the villa and flown to Greece, and nothing was ever the same between them again. “I’m fine here,” she said.

“I won’t hurt you,” he replied softly.

Her nails pierced her skin. Her eyes stung. If her legs would function, she’d run. Protect herself. Save herself. If only she had someone else to go to, someone else who would help her, but there was no one. Just Drakon. Just the man who had destroyed her, making her question her own sanity. “You already did that.”

“You say that, my love, and yet you’ve never told me how—”

“As you said, that isn’t something to discuss across a room of this size. And we both know, I didn’t come here to discuss us. Didn’t come to rehash the past, bring up old ghosts, old pain. I came for your help. You know what I need. You know what’s at stake. Will you do it? Will you help me?”

“Six million dollars is a lot of money.”

“Not to you.”

“Things have changed. Your father lost over four hundred million dollars of what I gave him.”

“It wasn’t his fault.” She met his gaze and held it, knowing that if she didn’t stand up to him now, he’d crush her. Just as he’d crushed her all those years ago.

Drakon, like her father, played by no rules but his own.

A Greek shipping tycoon, Drakon Sebastian Xanthis was a man obsessed with control and power. A man obsessed with amassing wealth and growing his empire. A man obsessed with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Bronwyn. The stunning Australian who ran his Southeast Asia business.