Defying Drakon

Whenever the two women had been in Miles’s company that had always appeared to be the case. It had only been when Gemini found herself alone with the other woman that Angela’s hostility had become so blatantly obvious, in the form of cutting remarks or long, uncomfortable silences.

It had quickly become obvious to Gemini that, other than Miles, the two women had absolutely nothing in common, and that even that common interest differed greatly in its intent. Angela had wanted and demanded all of Miles’s attention for herself. The existence of his twenty-something daughter had been more of an embarrassment than anything else. Whereas Gemini had just wanted to see her father happy again.

Angela asking her to move out of the house once she’d married Miles had certainly been no hardship to Gemini. She had only moved back into Bartholomew House after her mother died so that her father wouldn’t be left alone there with only his memories. It had been perfectly natural for her to move out again in order to leave the newly married couple to their privacy.

It was the fact that Angela had made the request without Miles’s knowledge and knowing full well that Gemini would never tell him what she had done that had been hard to bear. Angela had made it obvious to Gemini that she resented any time father and daughter spent together—to the point that she’d ensured it rarely happened. It had been an attitude that was never visible whenever Miles was present. Angela’s behaviour then had been sickeningly kittenish as she’d continued to wrap her much older and totally smitten husband about her manicured, sexy little finger.

In the circumstances, was it any wonder that Angela had enjoyed implying to Gemini that she had managed to capture the interest of someone like Drakon Lyonedes—a man half Miles’s age and probably a dozen times richer?

Knowing Angela as well as she did, Gemini thought the other woman believed it was only a matter of time, anyway, until she made the fabricated affair into a reality. So what did it matter if she’d exaggerated the situation to Gemini now? And if it didn’t happen who was ever going to contradict Angela’s claims when the man himself was so utterly elusive?

Except Gemini had now met Drakon, and she felt extremely foolish for having believed the other woman’s boast about his being infatuated with her. Gemini had no doubt Angela was lying to her; Drakon Lyonedes wasn’t the type of man to be infatuated with any woman. Besides, being so arrogantly self-assured he obviously never felt the need to lie about any of his actions—least of all his involvement with a woman!

‘Am I right in assuming this information was given to you by your stepmother?’ he prompted harshly.

Gemini flinched at the disgust underlying his tone. ‘Perhaps I misunderstood her.’ She gave an uncomfortable lift of her shoulders. ‘I—She mentioned how…nice you were.’ Sexily gorgeous had been her exact words, actually, but Gemini really couldn’t bring herself to tell him that! ‘Maybe I just let my imagination take that a step further than Angela actually intended—’

‘I believe you assured me earlier that you do not lie?’ Drakon cut in.

She winced. ‘I try not to, no…’

‘Then do not do so now,’ he advised her coldly.

‘I believe I said I might have been mistaken,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘And do you really believe that?’

‘What I believe is that Angela was trying to hurt me by boasting of how quickly she had replaced my father in her bed,’ Gemini acknowledged shakily. ‘You must have thought I was completely off my head this morning when I started rambling on about the affair you were having with Angela.’ She offered him an embarrassed smile.

He gave a derisive snort. ‘Not completely, no.’

‘You’ve never been intimately involved with Angela, have you?’

‘No,’ he confirmed.

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry!’

‘Here—drink some more of your wine.’ Drakon moved to pick up Gemini’s glass and handed it to her, inwardly seething at Angela Bartholomew and the lies she had told her stepdaughter. In order to hurt her? No doubt. For himself, Drakon took exception to any woman claiming to have a relationship with him that simply did not, never had and never would exist. Especially in the case of the voluptuous Angela Bartholomew.

Would he resent it quite as much if it had not been the intriguing and beautiful Gemini to whom that lie had been told?

Drakon didn’t even want to think about the implications of that question, let alone find an answer for it! ‘Not everything your stepmother told you about me was a lie. Lyonedes Enterprises is