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He shrugged. ‘Billion-dollar empires don’t just happen without someone putting in the legwork.’
‘It would be nice...’ her voice trailed off and, once again, she seemed to be picking her words carefully ‘...if you could spend a little more time with your son.’
Drakon felt a flicker of irritation because that felt almost like a criticism, and it was not in her remit to criticise him. But why not placate her when he was going away tomorrow, by wiping that look of uncertainty from her face? ‘That will happen,’ he said. ‘When things are a little quieter.’
She looked unconvinced and maybe he couldn’t blame her for that because, in truth, his heart was not engaged in fatherhood. He could see her hesitating, worrying her teeth into her bottom lip as if she was trying not to say something, but she said it all the same.
‘Do you have to go, Drakon?’
She tried to keep the question casual but in this she failed because it was a refrain he’d heard from women countless times over the years and Drakon tensed—because didn’t her words almost justify his intended trip? Didn’t they reinforce what he suspected was her growing emotional dependence on him and make him aware of the subtle ways she was trying to steer him away from his work? But she had to understand that no way was he going to take his eye off the ball, because he’d seen what could happen if you did. He was still his own boss and a man who answered to nobody—not to his adopted baby and certainly not to his wife—and the sooner she realised that, the better.
Steeling his heart against the reproach in her eyes, he shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I do,’ he answered coolly. ‘I don’t know if I mentioned that we’re trying to extend our oil refinery—’
Her voice sounded stiff. ‘No, I don’t believe you did. You don’t exactly encourage me to keep up with what’s going on in your empire, do you?’
Ignoring the underlying complaint in her question, he picked up a piece of home-made pitta bread. ‘Amy hasn’t been able to get anywhere with the government. She keeps coming up against opposition—she suspects it’s because she’s a woman—and I really do need to be there.’
‘Of course you do.’ But Lucy put her soup spoon back down on the plate, her appetite suddenly deserting her. Was that because, although Drakon was going through the motions of sounding apologetic, the anticipation in his voice suggested he really wanted to go off on a last-minute trip to the Far East? And wasn’t the truth of it that he probably felt trapped in a marriage he’d never really wanted?
Because the honeymoon was over. At least, that was how it seemed to her. Within twenty-four hours of returning to London from Prasinisos, life had picked up a new routine and Lucy realised just how much time she was expected to spend on her own. Drakon had resumed what she was to discover were his habitual twelve-hour days at the office, leaving her at home with Xander, Sofia and the rest of his large contingent of staff.
She took to rising deliberately early in order to eat breakfast with her husband before he left for the office, knowing he wouldn’t return until dinner time. Because what was the point of being married if you never got to see the man you’d married? At least when she was pouring strong coffee and offering him a croissant—which he would invariably refuse—she felt as if she was going through the motions of being a married woman. But only at night did she feel like a real wife, when Drakon undressed her and took her into his arms. When he made her cry out with disbelieving pleasure as his lips and fingers and tongue opened up her senses. Her breasts would grow full and aching—her nipples pebbling into tight little bullets as he grazed at them hungrily with his teeth. She opened her legs and took him deep into her body, his hard heat filling her and making her feel, well... complete. Was it crazy to admit that was the effect he had on her? Suddenly she could understand all those things she’d read about successful sex—as if some kind of transformational magic had taken place between two people.
Afterwards she would lie in his arms, her ear pressed close to his chest, listening to the dying thunder of his heart. Their legs would still be entwined and she could feel the sticky trickle of his seed on her thigh as she longed for him to say something—anything—which would make her understand just how he really felt about her. But there was nothing—which made her conclude that he felt nothing. Inevitably, he would fall asleep straight away, leaving Lucy lying there, her eyes adjusting to the mysterious shadows which seemed to be lurking in the corners of the vast room. Was this how it was going to be from now on, or was there a possibility that their incredible physical closeness might eventually lead to some kind of emotional bond?
The signs weren’t promising. At times, she still felt like something he had acquired—in the way he might acquire a new yacht. One morning he presented her with a credit card—a shiny platinum affair which glowed against the starched white linen tablecloth, as he slid it across the table towards her.
‘What’s this?’ she questioned blankly.
‘Surely you can work that out for yourself, Lucy.’
‘A credit card?’
‘I thought you’d be pleased. You need your own money,’ he added, in response to her blank stare.
‘But how can it possibly be my money when I haven’t earned it?’
It was a naïve question and maybe she deserved the answering elevation of his brows.
‘You could work a million hours a week and never earn a fraction of what I do,’ he said, his gentle tone not quite taking the sting out of his words. ‘You shouldn’t have to come to me every time you want to buy something. What if you want to get yourself a new car? Or redecorate the apartment? Put your own stamp on it. That kind of thing.’
Her own stamp. Lucy gritted an automatic smile as she poured him a cup of the strong black coffee he seemed unable to function without. His statement would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. Because how could she possibly make her presence felt when her brilliant billionaire husband dominated everything and everyone around him? She had no desire to change a beautifully decorated home just for the sake of it—because that would be a terrible waste of money and that wasn’t the way she had been brought up. But she was certainly going to have to find something to do with her days, other than help Sofia look after Xander.
Xander.
A lump rose in her throat. The child she was loving more with every day which passed. Was it knowing that he was going to be her only child which made her feelings for him so fierce and fundamental? Sometimes when Drakon was at the office she found herself staring down at the infant lying sleeping in his crib. The infant still largely ignored by his adoptive father—unless you counted the perfunctory kiss Drakon sometimes planted on his head if ever his return from the office managed to coincide with Xander being awake, which wasn’t often.
Sometimes Lucy found herself wondering if he timed his arrival home deliberately, to make it so. If he was determined to keep his distance. Why, even on Sundays—Sofia’s and the rest of the staff’s day off—the workaholic tycoon didn’t go out of his way to bond with his baby son, did he? He still managed to absent himself for long periods of time, going out for a sprint around Hyde Park and returning covered in spatters of mud with his black hair clinging in damp tendrils to his neck. Or holing himself up
in his home office to read through long contracts with horribly small print.
True to his word, Drakon went to Singapore the very next day and was gone for two weeks. Two whole weeks with phone calls his only method of communication. He blamed their sporadic nature on the time difference between London and Singapore and maybe that was true. But to Lucy it felt as if they were a million miles apart, rather than six and a half thousand. All he seemed to want to talk about was how brilliantly the talks about extending the oil refinery were going. He even sent a photograph of him and Amy sitting in some plush restaurant in the famous Botanic Gardens of the city, having dinner with a load of government ministers. Lucy felt as if he were standing on the deck of a ship which was moving further and further away from her. And all she could wonder was whether this was how it was going to be from now on.
‘So, when are you coming back?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow lunchtime. I’ve asked for the plane to be ready at midnight.’
Lucy spent the day trying to contain her state of excited expectation, but at the appointed hour she heard her phone ringing, rather than the welcome click of Drakon’s key in the lock.
