Defying Drakon

Drakon scowled. ‘I didn’t know that…’

Gemini shrugged those slender shoulders. ‘There’s no reason why you should have done.’

Oh, but there was…As soon as his business meeting this morning had been over Drakon had telephoned down to Max Stanford and asked him to check not only whether Gemini was indeed who she claimed to be, but also into the dynamics of the relationship between Gemini and her stepmother. Perhaps he should have asked Max to put together a more detailed personal dossier on Gemini?

To learn that she had a job at all, let alone owned and ran her own florist’s shop, came as something of a surprise to him. Miles Bartholomew had come from old money, and had only added to that wealth during his successful business life; as his only child Gemini would surely have no reason to work. Unless…

His jaw tightened. ‘I thought you said you were not left without funds when your father died?’

‘I wasn’t.’ She smiled, revealing small and even white teeth. ‘As I said, I have a trust fund. I’ve owned my shop for five years now—I’m afraid I’m just not the type to sit on my backside looking pretty while I wait for some handsome prince to whisk me off my feet and into marriage,’ she declared.

This young woman was ethereally beautiful rather than merely pretty, and Drakon had no doubts that there had been plenty of men during her twenty-seven years who would have wished to ‘whisk’ her off to somewhere probably a lot less permanent than matrimony. Himself included…?

‘And do you enjoy owning and running a florist’s shop?’ he bit out, annoyed with his own thoughts.

‘I love it!’ She gave him another bright smile, those sea-green eyes glowing.

‘And is your shop successful?’

‘Very.’ Gemini shot Drakon a mischievous sideways glance. ‘And that’s not me being egotistical—it just is.’

‘Please don’t put words into my mouth,’ he advised dryly. ‘And no business “just is” successful. It takes hard work on the part of someone to make it so.’

She eyed him curiously. ‘You sound as if you speak from experience?’

He shrugged. ‘My father and uncle were the ones to found Lyonedes Enterprises. My cousin and I have merely continued to add to that success.’

Gemini knew these two powerful men had done so much more than that. Lyonedes Enterprises was now one of the most financially strong and successful companies in the world.

‘My father also started and ran his own company,’ she said. ‘He liquidated it all when he retired at sixty.’

‘Because you had no interest in running your father’s company? Or because he had no son to continue it?’ Drakon prompted curiously.

Her smile faltered slightly. ‘Both, probably.’

Was that a note of sadness Drakon could hear in Gemini’s voice? Perhaps an underlying wistfulness for having grown up an only child? Having spent much of his life growing up with a boisterous younger cousin, Drakon could not even begin to imagine what that must have been like. His parents’ house had always seemed filled to overflowing with the two of them, and also many of their friends.

‘Unfortunately my talent always lay with flowers and other things that grow.’ She brightened. ‘Even as a small child I was obsessed with digging in the garden. To the point that my mother finally persuaded my father to give me my own bed in the garden—no doubt in an effort to stop me from digging up his prize roses!’ she added affectionately.

Just her talk of her parents was enough to reveal the deep love that had existed between them and Gemini—making Miles Bartholomew’s second marriage, to a woman not so much older than Gemini herself, even more difficult for her?

Drakon made a mental note to himself to thank his mother the next time he saw her for never having put Markos and himself through that same unpleasantness. Not that either of them would have been difficult if Karelia had decided to marry again after their father’s death; they both loved her far too much to wish her anything but happiness.

‘I imagine, as you’re the owner of a florist’s shop, it must be difficult for a man to send you flowers,’ he commented.

‘Not at all,’ Gemini assured him lightly. ‘Yellow roses are my favourites, if you ever feel the—’ She broke off abruptly, that delicate blush once again warming her cheeks. ‘Sorry. Of course you aren’t ever going to want to send me flowers.’ She grimaced, before turning away to stroll across to the windows that looked out over the illuminated London skyline. ‘This really is a magnificent view.’

Yes, it was. Except Drakon wasn’t looking at the London skyline but at Gemini herself.

He didn’t believe he had ever met another woman quite like her before. Beautiful, obviously accomplished as she ran a successful shop, and from all accounts a loving and loyal daughter to her father despite the less than harmonious relationship that existed between her and her stepmother. And she now felt such a sense of duty towards the home where she had spent her childhood, which had been in her family for over three hundred years, that she had even risked the possibility of Drakon having her arrested earlier this morning.

‘Do you play…?’

He smiled slightly as he saw she was looking across at the piano.

‘A little.’

‘And do you play well?’

‘Passably.’ He shrugged.

‘I’m sure that if you play even a little you do it very well indeed,’ she chided teasingly.

Drakon crossed the room to stand beside her. The softness of her perfume was an enticing mixture of flowers and beautiful woman. ‘Why do you say that?’ he prompted.

She smiled widely. ‘I don’t know you very well, but I already know enough about you to realise you’re the type of man who, if he chooses to do something, will never do it “passably” well!’ Once again that smile faltered and then disappeared as she seemed to realise exactly what she’d just said. And its obvious sexual implications…

Drakon chuckled huskily as that becoming blush once again coloured the ivory smoothness of her cheeks. ‘I will take that as a compliment…’

Gemini wasn’t at all comfortable with the sudden intimacy between them—an intimacy she knew she was completely responsible for creating with her thoughtless comment!

Was it because she hadn’t completely dispelled those earlier images of a naked Drakon Lyonedes emerging from the shower from her mind? Probably. She found it a little difficult to think of him in the abstract at all when he was standing beside her. So hot and immediate. As well as dark and dangerously attractive!

She moistened her lips. ‘Perhaps we should just concentrate on our business discussion?’

Those dark eyes narrowed, and his mouth was once again a thin and uncompromising line. ‘In that case I believe we must first dispense with your mistaken belief that I am currently involved in a personal relationship with your stepmother.’

Gemini turned, her eyes wide. ‘Mistaken…?’

‘Certainly.’ Drakon frowned. ‘I have always made a point of never mixing business with pleasure.’

‘But—’ She gave a slightly dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It is simple enough, surely?’ He raised those arrogant dark brows. ‘I have no idea why you should have drawn such a conclusion, but I assure you my only connection to your stepmother is one of business. In the form of my purchase of Bartholomew House,’ he added, so that there should be absolutely no doubt as to his meaning.

Gemini stared up at him wordlessly. He looked sincere enough. In fact he looked more than sincere—his handsome face was now visibly showing an expression of extreme distaste at the mere suggestion that he might be involved in an affair with Angela…

But her stepmother had told her—

A lie…?

What possible reason could Angela have had to lie about being involved in an intimate relationship with Drakon?

Knowing the other woman as well as Gemini had come to know Angela since her father had died, she found the answer was suddenly all too obvious.

Gemini had tried so hard to like Angela when her father had first introduced her as the woman he intended to marry. Despite the vast age difference between Angela and Miles. Despite the fact that Gemini had believed her father was rushing too hastily into a second marriage. And in spite of the fact that Angela had given every appearance of being nothing more than a voluptuous blonde beauty attracted to Miles’s money rather than the man himself.

Yes, despite all those things Gemini had still tried to like and get along with the older woman. For her father’s sake, if for no other reason, because she’d known how much he had wanted his second wife and his daughter to be friends.