Tara Pammi - Crowned For The Drakon Legacy

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

A BANKER NAMED Melissa from LA...

A concierge named Chloe in a swanky country club in Manhattan...

A cocktail waitress...

Mia Rodriguez scrolled down her cell phone screen, bile rising in her throat.

The list of her dead husband’s affairs was endless.

The throaty purr of the fiery red exclusive sports car was like a faint echo as it put distance between her and the hungry horde of reporters.

In the blink of an eye, the press conference to announce her retirement from soccer had turned into a circus with Brian’s infidelities taking center stage. A year since his death and he was still haunting her.

Fingers shaking, she pressed the little flickering triangle on a video.

Brian was voracious when it came to sex...

Every time we met, he wore me out...

His wife, Mia, probably only had time for soccer, and it’s obvious Brian turned to me for what he didn’t get from her...

“Turn it off.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Tears would have been a relief; tears would have meant that she could vent the tumult building up inside. Tears would mean that she felt something, anything for the man she’d married.

The anchor’s voice etched into her mind as the clip played again and again.

Mia Rodriguez was not woman enough for her husband—

“Turn that blasted thing off.”

The shuddering halt of the powerful engine pitched Mia toward the dashboard. She gasped at the tight pull of the seat belt against her chest. Her heart catapulted into her throat. Large, unfamiliar hands grabbed her cell phone and tossed it onto the backseat.

Mia followed the motion like a doll, the flickering screen sliding against the buttery leather.

“Mia...look at me.”

She raised her confused gaze from the fingers on her chin at the commanding tone.

Intense blue eyes collided with hers, driving the breath out of her lungs. A strong, aquiline nose; a wide, languid, laughing mouth; a face that made women over the world swoon and sigh. Such a man and so close...

Not just any man. A prince. Lethal masculinity and pulse-pounding charm.

Nikandros Drakos.

Daredevil Prince of Drakon, second in line to the throne, extreme adventure sport enthusiast and sexy as sin...

Intending to push him away, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Hair-roughened skin scraped the pads of her fingers, rough and tantalizing, so wholly alien to her own... A jolt of lightning jump-started every neuron, wakened every cell from a deep, slumbering haze.

Her gaze moved to the long fingers gripping the steering wheel. From there, she followed the veins on the back of his hands to his wrists.

A Patek Philippe watch sat on his right wrist, its big dial winking at her in the low light. A sportsman’s watch. She’d been given one too, when their team had won the world championship four years ago. When Nikandros had still owned the team.

Her gaze crawled up until it reached the breadth of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw, the slightly long, dark hair curling at his collar...

“Stop listening to those horrid little interviews.”

She blinked and looked away.

He seemed huge, overwhelmingly male and far too close in the dark confines of the car. He’d been Brian’s close friend. A man she’d come to loathe, for her reckless husband had worshipped him as if he were truly his liege.

A man who had always made his opinion, that Mia wasn’t good enough for Brian, crystal clear. A man who was addicted to the thrill that came from taunting death in the face. A man with no control over his thrill-seeking impulses.

Everything Mia abhorred in a man.

The fiery resentment spurred her out of her choking self-pity.

But nothing could dim her awareness of the man waiting, far too close for comfort, and watching her from those intense blue eyes.

The silence took on a tangible quality, a jeering voice betraying her body’s near-violent reaction to him. God, she’d die if he guessed it. Even this humiliation in front of the entire world, this mockery she was being made of by the media, would still be less painful than seeing the cool, contemptuous dismissal of those ice-blue eyes.

The thought snapped her spine into place.

This awareness was a reaction to shock, a basic human need for touch in the face of adversity.

It had been months, no, three years, since a man had even touched her.

Accepting that piece of truth pumped courage into her veins.

She stared through the windshield, only now taking in their surroundings.

They had left downtown Miami behind and had reached a swanky, luxury neighborhood. The high-rise apartment complex visible from the car made this whole situation even more surreal.

She barely met his gaze, and then turned, faking interest in the surroundings. “Sorry, I should’ve given you directions. It’s going back for you but I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me at my apartment.” Good, she sounded steady, polite.

“I believe your mother and sister live in Houston, yes?”

Startled that he knew that much, she nodded. It seemed a live current pulsed to life every time their eyes met. Mia had never thought antipathy could become so tangible between two people.

“I can have the pilot fuel the jet and drop you off.”

If Brian and she had been minor celebrities with soccer fans, this man was royalty himself. He owned private jets, soccer teams and Extreme Adventure Clubs, and this was when the tabloids didn’t count the wealth he’d inherited as the scion of the powerful royal house of Drakon.

The Prince who had thrown away his legacy...

“That’s not necessary,” she managed to say. Every time he spoke, that deep voice jolted places inside of her Mia had forgotten even existed. “You’ve done far too much already.”

“You speak as if I were one of those jackals back at the press meet, as if I were the enemy too.” A hint of impatience and something else peeked through in his voice. As if something more than years-old animosity existed between them.

He was a prince—privileged in every way possible, handsome, reckless, charming, without an ounce of substance.

She—everything she had in life she’d worked damned hard for. She didn’t know when the last time she’d done anything that had amounted to fun had been. The career she’d worked toward for her whole life was over at twenty-six.

They had nothing in common.

This whole line of conversation was far too personal for her comfort. “I don’t know you enough for you to engender such strong emotion.”

“Mia Rodriguez Morgan does not show emotion, does she? I forget your reputation.”

“You know nothing of me except for the persona created by the media, Your Highness. Your friendship with Brian tells you nothing about me.”

“You’re right. I do not know you.” There was that note of annoyance in his tone again. “Tell me, should I call the pilot then?”

“Thanks for the offer. But I’ll just call a cab.” She reached between their seats and stretched her hand to grab her cell. “If you can wait till the cab gets here, I’d appreciate it. I don’t want to wait on this stretch alone.”

“I would appreciate if you would do me the courtesy of looking at me when I speak to you, Mia. We’ve known each other for a decade.”

“And we’ve disliked each other for the whole damned decade, so please, let’s not pretend otherwise.”

A stillness filled the car at Mia’s outburst.

He was right. She’d met him before she’d even met Brian. She’d been seventeen, playing for the junior team when she’d met the young European Prince of Drakon.

Like everybody else, she’d been infatuated with the charming Prince. Tales had been told of his fight with his royal family, of his escapades with women from all over the world, the reckless car races and high-adrenaline sports he engaged in. She’d always been shy when it came to men, wary and reserved of slick charmers like him.