‘Oh? Must you?’
‘Yes, I must,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m afraid it can’t be helped.’
It was disappointing. Of course it was—and part of her wanted to ask him to put whatever or whoever it was on hold, so they could enjoy every last second on the island. But Lucy was made of stronger stuff than that. She might have sometimes resented the military life in which she’d grown up, but being an army brat had taught her how to be strong and resilient. She needed to remind herself why Drakon had married her. Mostly because he wanted a mother substitute, but hand in hand with that went his own need for a supportive wife. She had to look on anything else as a bonus, rather than with any sense of entitlement.
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I might do some packing so we aren’t rushing in the morning.’
And that was how Lucy spent the last evening of her honeymoon. She took a long bath and washed all the sea water out of her hair. Then she packed her case and started reading a previously unopened novel she’d brought with her.
And though it was difficult to empathise with a woman who found herself marooned in a snowy cottage on Christmas Eve with a brooding stranger—why on earth had she set out for the cottage when the weather forecast had been so atrocious?—Lucy gave it her best shot.
At least Drakon made it down in time for dinner but he ate more perfunctorily than with any obvious signs of enjoyment and refused Spiro’s home-made baklava, which made the chef go into a slight sulk. Only at bedtime did things settle into an agreeably familiar pattern, when her new husband took her to bed. He pulled the duvet over them like a private snowy tent and began to kiss her, and all the faint frustrations of the evening were forgotten. He made love to her very quickly, as if he were seeking some sort of release—but Lucy wasn’t going to analyse that either. She just revelled in the elation which pulsed through her veins afterwards. Because this was bliss. Being in Drakon’s arms was like finding her own tiny piece of heaven. Through heavy-lidded eyes she studied his profile, his skin silvered by the moonlight which flooded in from the windows, his indifferent expression giving nothing away.
‘Did you sort all your business out?’ she questioned.
He frowned. ‘Are you really interested in talking about that right now?’
Was that censure which underpinned the hint of mockery in his voice? ‘I thought you might want me to show some interest,’ she said, a little defensively.
‘Well, I don’t. At least, not in that. Only in this.’
Lucy’s head fell back against the pillow as he gave a featherlight flick of his tongue against her nipple and she squirmed when he licked some more and his hand crept down between her thighs. And although warm desire flooded through her, it was followed by a feeling of frustration which had nothing to do with the physical. Because this was a familiar pattern with Drakon, she recognised. He used his physicality to distract her from subjects he had no desire to pursue. And it worked. Every time. That was the magical yet ultimately infuriating thing about her husband. That he had the power to manipulate her. To use sex to quieten or console her—and there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do about it.
They left the island at noon the following day and arrived in London just as dusk was falling and the Christmas lights in the city were starting to glow in the fading light. Inside the lobby of the luxury apartment block shone a glittering tree she’d barely noticed before the wedding—and this evening it seemed to symbolise a faded air of festivity which echoed her own increasingly flat mood. In the elevator she badly wanted Drakon to kiss her but he was busy looking at his phone and Lucy knew she needed to ruthlessly prune any romantic fantasies instead of allowing them to grow. They’d had a great honeymoon. So what? That didn’t change anything, did it? That didn’t mean he’d suddenly started to care for her, did it? Yet she had started to care for him even more than she’d done before. That was the truth of it.
Be careful, Lucy, she thought. Be very careful.
The elevator doors slid open and she walked straight into the apartment, where a smiling Sofia was waiting with Xander in her arms. The baby was dressed in a green sleepsuit covered with red-nosed reindeers and Lucy felt a welling up of something hard in her chest which took her breath away as she cradled the infant. He was so tiny and helpless and...she’d missed him, she realised with a wrench. Had Drakon missed him too? she wondered, turning her head to speak to her husband.
‘Drakon? Look. See how he’s...’ But Lucy realised she was talking to an empty space. That Drakon had slipped from the room without a word and, from the fading sound of his conversation, it appeared he was already on the phone to somebody.
She tried not to let it bother her as she played with the baby. She bathed him and fed him and sang a crooning little song she remembered from those long hours of night duty when she’d worked in the neonatal unit at St Jude’s hospital. She gave Sofia the evening off and, once Xander was asleep, Lucy changed into a dress she’d never worn before. Before she’d met Drakon, she would never have dared. Silky scarlet jersey clung to her hips and the slashing V neckline gave an uncharacteristic glimpse of shadowed cleavage. Spiky-heeled black shoes with scarlet soles completed the outfit and she styled her hair into a fashionably messy topknot which the Granchester hairdresser had showed her how to do.
Zena had prepared a meal which she’d left for them and Lucy was just lighting tall candles in the dining room, when Drakon walked into the room. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone and she could see the faint darkness of chest hair, which arrowed downward in a beguiling path. He hadn’t changed since they’d arrived back from Prasinisos, she realised, narrowing her eyes. He must have been on the phone all this time. He was looking around the room, taking in the holly-strewn centrepiece with tall silver candles which adorned the table and the bottle of champagne which protruded from an ice bucket.
‘This all looks very...festive,’ he observed, with the air of a man who had just been told that his dentist was about to make an unscheduled visit.
‘Doesn’t it?’ Lucy said brightly. ‘Zena must have gone to a lot of trouble and it’s still...well, it’s still Christmas.’
He turned his attention to her outfit. ‘Is that why you’re dressed like the personification of seasonal sex in your Santa-red dress?’ he questioned huskily. ‘Because you want me to unwrap you?’
Lucy swallowed as her nipples tightened in time to his slow scrutiny. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she whispered. ‘We might no longer be on honeymoon, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still make love after dinner every night, if you want to, which I’m rather hoping you do.’
‘Who knows what either of us will want? This is still all very new—to both of us.’ He picked up the champagne bottle and began to tear the foil from its neck. ‘Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we, Lucy?’
His voice was soft but entirely devoid of emotion, and as she looked into the unfathomable darkness of his eyes Lucy wondered whether he intended his words to sound more like a threat than a promise.
CHAPTER NIN
E
DRAKON SAT BACK in his chair and twisted the stem of his wine glass between his fingers as he studied his wife who was sitting opposite him in the large dining room of his Mayfair apartment. Candlelight flickered over the polished table and over the dark, coiled gloss of her hair. ‘Did I mention that I need to go to Singapore tomorrow?’ he questioned.
Lucy looked up from her bowl of Greek lemon chicken soup, her spoon suspended in mid-air. ‘No, you didn’t.’ A frown criss-crossed her brow. ‘Tomorrow? Just like that? Without any kind of warning?’
‘That’s business, Lucy.’
‘It seems to be a very demanding business.’ She hesitated. ‘When you always seem to be working.’