A deal sealed with passion!

Illegitimate and overlooked, Eleni, Princess of Drakon, yearns for a family. At a masquerade ball, one stolen kiss with a stranger sparks an opportunity! Gabriel Marquez wants her to care for his child—could this be Eleni’s chance to strike a deal of her own?

Gabriel, Drakon’s biggest investor, is shocked by Eleni’s bold bargaining...but a convenient marriage would be advantageous to them both! He’ll gain a stand-in mother for his daughter, and Eleni the baby she longs for. Except Gabriel hasn’t predicted the fire raging between them...one which will bind them together forever!

“Come now, Princesa. You had the nerve to propose marriage to me. Don’t shy away now.”

“I…I do not ask for your fidelity or your love, Gabriel. I do not need such delusions in my life. I only ask that you give me…”

Such color filled Eleni’s cheeks that Gabriel stared, transfixed. Her lips trembled and she dug her teeth into the lower one. Lust punched him like an invisible blow, and it was all he could do not to tug at that lower lip and taste her himself.

“Eleni?” he prompted, in a harsh voice set on edge by the delectable temptation she made.

“I want a baby. A child of my own. I was in the process of going through adoption agencies when you…you threatened to pull your company out of Drakon. It’s not something I’m willing to give up on—for anyone.”

Every muscle in his body stiffened. Every instinct he possessed warned him to walk away from this deal with this woman. But even as he processed it, he had to admire her guts.

“A baby? You’re bargaining for a baby?”

The Drakon Royals

Royalty has never looked this scandalous!

To the outside world, the Drakon Royals have the world at their feet. Yet beneath the surface black-hearted Crown Prince Andreas, his daredevil younger brother Prince Nikandros and their illegitimate sister Princess Eleni hide the secrets of their family name…

Until one brush with desire, and then all the Drakons find themselves at the heart of their very own scandal!

Find out what happens in:

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

April 2017

The Drakon Baby Bargain

June 2017

Look out for Andreas’s story

September 2017

You won’t want to miss this outrageously scandalous new trilogy from Tara Pammi!

The Drakon Baby Bargain

Tara Pammi

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!

Books by Tara Pammi

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

The Sheikh’s Pregnant Prisoner

The Man to Be Reckoned With

A Deal with Demakis

The Drakon Royals

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

Brides for Billionaires

Married for the Sheikh’s Duty

The Legendary Conti Brothers

The Surpise Conti Child

The Unwanted Conti Bride

Greek Tycoons Tamed

Claimed for His Duty

Bought for Her Innocence

Society Weddings

The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife

A Dynasty of Sand and Scandal

The Last Prince of Dahaar

The True King of Dahaar

Visit the Author Profile page at

millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

The Drakon Royals

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

ONE KISS...

Eleni Drakos stood at the outer fringes of the black-and-white-tiled ballroom and peered through her elaborate mask.

One kiss from any man who’d look at her with warmth and desire, a man who could make her forget that a chasm of cutting loneliness was all that stretched ahead in her life.

One kiss because it was her thirtieth birthday and she was quite sick of her stagnant life, of pretending that the sight of her sister-in-law with her swollen belly didn’t send a shaft of ache through her, or that she didn’t crave a family of her own.

She’d lived her entire life within the rules her father, King Theos, had set, ensuring that her brothers, Andreas and Nikandros, had everything they had ever needed.

What she hadn’t foreseen was that in the end, she would be alone. Just as she had been all these years.

She walked aimlessly at the fringes of the vast oval-shaped ballroom, the cut-crystal chandeliers making the resplendently dressed men and women glitter. She wasn’t the only one hiding her identity behind the mask. The masquerade ball was an annual tradition of the House of Drakos and yet, with her father Theos’s dementia becoming worse, it had not been held in four years.

But because the conservative traditionalists were balking at Andreas’s continued absence after their father’s death, and they feared that Nikandros and Gabriel Marquez’s partnership was a risk to Drakon’s economy, Eleni had suggested that they hold the ball again as a way of pacifying them.

And then she’d put the ball together in three weeks.

Scanning the stunningly dressed women and tuxedoed men who were dancing to a slow waltz, satisfaction filled her veins. Her fingers tingled to look through her fabled to-do list and check it off.

The black-and-white mask she’d bought on her trip to Paris last week went particularly well with the dark red lipstick. Piled high in a chignon, wispy tendrils of her usually unruly hair kissed her jaw.

Strapless and snug around her chest, her black-and-red silk ball gown accentuated an hourglass figure no amount of careful dieting could reduce, dipping at her waist and flaring into a full flounce.

The four-inch stilettos she had pushed her feet into boosted her five-two height, flashing her toned leg through the thigh-high slit. She’d been stunned when she’d looked at her reflection in the gold-filigree full-length mirror.

She’d always be plain compared to her half brothers, the Princes of Drakon; the media frequently reminded her by calling her the Plain Princess, but in that moment, she’d thought she had almost looked beautiful.

Good enough for the House of Drakos, her father would have said.

She continued wandering across the ballroom, marveling at the magnificence of the hotel.

It had been a crumbling Victorian-style mansion with out-of-date plumbing and bad interiors, but in three months Marquez Holdings Inc. had renovated it into a world-class destination for the nouveau rich that were pouring into Drakon, thanks to Gabriel Marquez’s interest.

The ruthless real estate mogul was a guest of the palace of Drakon, and had been in Drakon for three months to oversee his company’s investment in Drakon.

Casinos, luxury resorts that rivaled the King’s Palace in style and ambience, mountain escapes, a world-class racing circuit—the map of Drakon was changing under Mr. Marquez’s and her brother Nik’s deft guidance.

A modern-day Midas, as the media called him, Eleni wouldn’t have believed the transformation of the building Gabriel Marquez had wrought if she hadn’t visited it herself almost a year ago.

Taking a sip of her chilled champagne, she looked down over the lush gardens. The scent of roses was thick in the air; a clock struck midnight at the old church in the city’s main square.

She took a longer sip than was wise, felt the bubbly kiss her throat cold and sighed. It was a sound that seemed to come from the depths of her lonely soul.

The night stretched empty in front of her again.

“Why the long sigh, querida?”

The deep, slumberous voice sent a shiver down Eleni’s spine that rivaled the tingles in her throat. Heart beating faster, she turned, bracing her hand on the balcony balustrade. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your—”

“Stay.”

With the one command, he made her spine lock. Even her father, who had been a bossy, hard-to-please man, had never ordered her around like that. “Excuse me?”

“Stay and keep me company,” the man repeated, not even a little taken aback by her stiff tone.

With his back to the wall, the man was huge. Like a bouncer at a nightclub, he was tall and powerfully built.

A veneer of power clung to his frame. Unlike the other men at the ball, no mask covered his face. Only shadows.

His blue-black hair framed his face in thick, unruly waves. The fine white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, clung to lean muscle. The breadth of his frame sent tremors through Eleni.

She couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling down his length. One foot crossed over the other and stretched the fabric of his trousers, revealing the hard musculature of his thighs.

Eleni swallowed the strange anticipation that seemed to rise in her throat. He pushed off from the wall.

She barely swallowed the soft gasp that rose to her lips.

Roughly chiseled masculine planes, a wide, sensuously cruel mouth and a nose bent in the middle—it was Gabriel Marquez, the very man she’d been mooning over for months. The man who reminded her she was a woman every minute she spent in his company. The desire and need that she’d thought had disappeared with Spiros still burned bright in her.

The ruthlessness that had made Gabriel a legend in boardrooms across Europe screamed from every inch of him.

Her heart pumped faster as she waited for him to recognize her.

His dark slate-gray eyes studied her. He’d never so much as rested his gaze on her in three months of long meetings and numerous requests she’d dealt with. Not once had he shown any awareness that she was a woman.

No, then she was Princess Eleni Drakos, the facilitator for his firm, the grease between his company and the palace. But now she was a masked stranger, and something flared in those depths. Something that made her aware of how thin the silk of her dress was, of how tightly her skin seemed to be stretched.

“Such a wealth of regret and—” he paused while his gaze seared her “—need from a beautiful woman’s lips...it feels like a challenge to any man.”

“It wasn’t...need,” she retorted instantly, somehow negating what she had meant to say.

“Come, querida, isn’t the idea of the masquerade to be open about our innermost desires while we hide our outward selves?” He traced the lower edge of her mask with a finger. Sensation zoomed from the spot. “You’re safe behind that mask.”

When his finger continued its journey back down and reached the indent over her upper lip, Eleni grabbed his wrist. If he touched her mouth... “Why aren’t you wearing one?” she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless.

“Because I don’t have to hide myself to express what I want. Nor do I need to validate myself by hiding from the world who I am.”

Arrogance dripped from his every word. But why not? There wasn’t one single woman in the palace who hadn’t lost her breath over the sight of him.

“You sound far too sure of your appeal.”

He shrugged. “I am Gabriel Marquez, Ms....?”

Eleni racked her brains for a name that had no association with her or the House of Drakos. She’d taken every precaution not to betray her identity at this ball tonight, including arranging it so that she was thought to be still in Paris by her staff and even by her brother Nikandros. Only Mia knew she was here. And the last thing she wanted was for this man to figure out who she was, especially now that he was staring at her with such male interest that she felt heady and drunk.

“You didn’t think of a fake name before you decided to come to the ball tonight?”

A taunt in his question brought her gaze to his. Humor lurked in his eyes and Eleni felt something in her loosen at the sight of it. The twitching curve of his bold mouth unraveled a hidden streak she didn’t even know she had. “A name was not required for the goal I had in mind.”

His gray gaze gleamed with pure delight. “Now you make me more curious. Still, I would like a name to call you as I figure out what specific goals you had in mind for tonight. And how I can help you succeed in achieving them.”

Awareness flooded every inch of her body and Eleni stood shaking in its wake. His bold eyes swept over her face, stilling for a second more on her mouth. His nostrils flared and a wave of heat seemed to emanate from him.

He was attracted to her, she realized with a sudden leap of her heart. The man who had never given her a second glance was attracted to her.

“Cinderella,” Eleni whispered, after a moment’s thought.

His eyes crinkled at the corners and warmth filled his eyes. It was such an unfamiliar, unusual expression on his usually serious face that Eleni stared hungrily. The man was gorgeous, but his smile made him breathtaking. “And is it the cruel stepsisters and stepmother that you’re hoping to hide from tonight, Cinderella?”

A smile came to her easily. As easily as the giddy response. She felt like a teenager, bantering and flirting with the boy she’d been sneaking glances at for a few months. Wild and beautiful and wanted, as if she were any one of those women who were even now skillfully laughing and flirting with available men, women who knew the cues and their own worth, women who would spend the night in a lover’s arms.

Women who hadn’t been waiting their entire life for a man who’d promised the world. Women who had the guts to go after what they wanted instead of mourning a man who was long gone from her life.

She hadn’t thought Gabriel Marquez would be the one who’d seek her out, but in her wildest dreams, wasn’t this what she wanted? So why not take what she’d come for? Why not live for the moment?

Why not believe in the fantasy that she was beautiful and desirable and confident, and that the fire she saw in his eyes was all for her?

“You were right on the first guess,” she said, jumping into the moment with both feet.

A vertical line formed between his brows, his arms coming to the balcony to cage her. “You sound familiar, Cinderella.”

Shoulders rigid with tension, Eleni fought to keep her face straight. Was it the way she had said his name? Or was her disguise not enough to hide who she was?

The levity disappeared from his eyes, leaving them stone cold. “Did you come to the ball looking for me, Cinderella?”

That set her back up like nothing else could have. Lifting her chin, she met his gaze square. “You think a lot of yourself, do you not?”

“Women seek favors of me all the time,” he said, the taunt back in his tone. “One does become a little jaded.”

“It must be nice to believe the world revolves around oneself.”

He threw his head back and laughed, sending trails of pleasure whispering over every inch of her skin. The broad shoulders shook with his laughter, which was a deep, masculine sound. Sleek grooves appeared in his rugged face, rendering that hard face a little beautiful.

“The more I listen to you, the more I like you. Tell me truly, have we met before?”

“In passing maybe,” she offered, skating the line between truth and lies. “But I’m too much beneath your notice even if you’d seen me.”

“I doubt I would forget you.” The cage of his hands shrank around her, teasing her nostrils with the scent of him. Sandalwood and musk and something so essentially masculine it made her want to throw caution to the winds and burrow into his skin. “So if it’s not a beastly family, who are you hiding from tonight, Ella?”

She flinched at the way he shortened her name and wished fervently that the shadows had hid it from him. Her brother Nik had always called her Ellie and so did Mia. To hear it fall from Gabriel’s lips—it was thrilling and dangerous like nothing else.

“A clingy, dumbstruck lover?” Something hard entered his eyes. “Or a disgruntled husband?”

“No, no husband—” she half choked on the word “—and no lover either.

“I’m hiding from myself,” she said, giving voice to the sentiment that had been gnawing at her for a while. “For one night, I wanted to be someone else, something else. I wanted to be daring and beautiful and a woman who lived in the moment. I wanted to be anyone but me.” She caught the wistfulness in her voice and colored. “I’m sure you could not understand even if you tried.”

He smiled and the grooves in his cheeks made his square jaw even more masculine. Straight white teeth gleamed in the silvery light, the lower lip jutting out in its fullness.

Having grown up surrounded by arrogant, unbending men like her father, King Theos, and half brother Andreas should have made her impervious to the aura of power that surrounded Gabriel, should have made her wary of that ruthless quality that pretty much had ruled her life when her father had been alive.

But it didn’t.

For some unknown reason, she had always found herself drawn to Gabriel. To his confidence and arrogance.

“What makes you say that?” he ventured softly, as if he really wanted her opinion of him.

“You are Gabriel Marquez. Your reach and power...you own every space you enter, isn’t that what they say?”

He shrugged, as if it were all matter of fact. “I have strived all my life to become what I am, to own everything I do today. And, no, I have never wished to wear another’s skin.”

Gray eyes searched her face. The perusal sent heat rushing to her cheeks. Long fingers drifted lazily onto her hips and every nerve in her body pulsed and stretched taut. As if it were possible to become smaller or less curvy by willing one’s body to shrink.

If he noticed her instinctive reaction to his touch, he didn’t heed it. Back and forth, his fingers traced the curve of her full hips, like butterfly kisses.

But it was rapt attention that went to her head, as if she had drunk something to make her euphoric. No man had ever looked at Eleni without the consequences of what and who she was.

Either she was an asset or a liability.

Either she was too low because she was illegitimate and held no real position of power in Drakos, or she was too much of a hassle to get involved with because she was close with her powerful brothers, the Princes of Drakon.

She belonged neither with the palace staff, nor on the wall of the East Hall that was graced by centuries of members of the distinguished, blue-blooded House of Drakos.

“Then my disguise, and my attempt at grabbing this moment under it, must seem like a joke to you. Pathetic even.”

“You’re wrong, querida. Even I need escape sometimes. Even I have to face the fact that I cannot control everything. That I cannot control fate and all the games it plays with us.”

A thread of something in his tone tugged at her. As if there was something this powerful man needed that she could provide.

“I came...because tonight I cannot escape what tomorrow brings for me. Because tomorrow I face something I dread.”

“Gabriel Marquez, afraid of something?”

Those grooves of his winked at her as he smiled again. “Shh...querida. You will spill my secrets and ruin my reputation. Now, tell me, what is it that you want tonight?”

The answer to a question had never come so easily before. “A kiss. I want a kiss.” She swallowed at the flames of desire that licked at his gray eyes. “From a man who wants me. Not a pity kiss, Gabriel.”

Hands on her hips, he swiveled her with masculine ease. Too shocked by the sudden contact, Eleni turned willingly.

A glass pane stood in front of them, reflecting their image. Even though she was wearing four-inch heels, he still easily overpowered her in height. She barely came to his shoulder. And his breadth—he was so overpoweringly male.

She felt like a doll, a fragile doll, compared to him. Not at all a practical, matter-of-fact woman, but a flimsy, fantastic creature of the night.

Even in the moonlight, it was clear that she was turned on. Her eyes glowed with gold flecks; her mouth, painted vivid red, was wide and vulnerable. She looked stunning, a mix of innocence and desire.

“Do you still think I would kiss you out of pity, querida?”

“No,” she said loudly, the whisper of his touch filling her with a sense of feminine power.

Swiveling in his arms, she vined her arms around his neck.

When his cool lips slid over hers, Eleni jerked at the contact. For a huge man known for his arrogance, Gabriel kissed with a tenderness she couldn’t believe. He tasted of whiskey and dark passion, and Eleni pressed into him shamelessly.

As if on cue, his kiss deepened. She gasped and his tongue flicked into her mouth. Stroked over the warm crevices with wicked intent. Tangled with her tongue in an erotic play that had her moaning.

Hard. Hungry. Hot. He kissed her like he wanted to sink into her. Like she offered him that escape he desperately craved.

His kiss rained sensation upon her, set every nerve on fire. Eleni sank into him gratefully while his hands moved over her hips, up to her shoulders, and then clasped her cheeks.

Long thumbs traced the lines of her face, desire painted on his stunning features. He dipped his head again and took her in another stinging kiss.

Her senses in a haze, she barely paid attention to his words. How could she when he nipped at her lower lip as if he meant to devour her?

When he kissed her as though he needed her more than air?

Low and rough, his words sent shivers through her spine.

Cool air hit her eyes and only then did Eleni realize that her mask had loosened.

The warm, male embrace immediately turned into a cold frost. Heat dissipated from her and she had to blink to see.

Her delicate mask dangled from his fingers, and a scowl etched his brow. He stared at the mask in his hands and then at her. Again and again, back and forth, as if he couldn’t believe the sight in front of his eyes.

Her lips burned with his kiss, but this was not the same man. He looked at her as if—she searched his expression—as if she had somehow betrayed him.

“What is the meaning of this, Ms. Drakos?” The mask fell at her feet with a whisper. “What the hell kind of a joke is this?”

She stepped back, the steel in his tone cutting through any foolish delusions she might still be clinging to. “It’s not a joke. It’s nothing,” she whispered and turned away.

Barely had she gone two steps before a vise-like grip had clamped over her upper arm and turned her. “Why are you here tonight? What do you want from me?”

The nerve of the man! “You approached me. You...you ordered me to stay and keep you company. You... I only spoke the truth.”

“So I’m supposed to believe the Plain Princess of Drakon—” he bit out her moniker with such sarcasm that Eleni flinched “—walks around masquerade balls, accosting men for kisses? That this is your nightly routine?”

“I did not accost you at all. And yes... I wanted a kiss. I wanted to feel less lonely for one night. I wanted...” Her voice caught, but she didn’t back down. “Which scenario threatens your masculine ego—that a woman could want to kiss a man, or that in your arrogance you think I came here looking to somehow trap you into kissing me?”

“You lied to me, Princesa. I asked you straight and you said you didn’t know me. Maybe you even got a little power trip from the fact that you knew who I was and I didn’t know who you were. Maybe it’s a little game you play every night with powerful men.”

“You’re crossing the line!”

“I’m sick of deceit and lies. If it is a kiss you want, here it is!”

If Eleni had had any sense, she would have slapped his arrogant jaw, hard. But no, when he touched his lips to hers again, she melted. She had no will or control over her body.

When he licked the seam of her lips, she gasped open for him, like a sunflower.

When he plunged his tongue into the cavern of her mouth, she shamelessly pressed against him.

His hands moved to her bottom and he pressed her against him, until she felt the evidence of his arousal. Until the hard planes of his body were stamped onto her soft curves. Until she was moaning, spreading her legs to feel more of him.

The kiss was over before it had begun, and yet it seemed to spin her senses. And the man who had delivered it looked at her as if she had agreed to sell her soul for pennies. “If you’re that desperate for a man, maybe ask one of your powerful brothers to set you up with one, Princesa,” he said mockingly. “The next man you play your little game with might not be as forgiving as me for your duplicity.”

Eleni stared at him, shaking from head to toe, burning with the unspent desire that he had aroused in her. Desire, she now realized, he had aroused with the sole intention of punishing her.

“I would not kiss you again if you were the last man on earth, Mr. Marquez,” she shouted but he’d already gone.

Try as she might to fight the temptation, she couldn’t help but run her fingers over her stinging mouth. Couldn’t stop tasting him on her lips.

CHAPTER TWO

Three months later

“I HATE THIS PLACE, I hate that I had to give up all my friends and move here and I hate you.”

The loud, blistering announcement exploded inside the conference room like a small detonation, jerking twelve heads toward the twelve-year-old girl standing just inside the room. Face scrunched, eyes brimming with fat tears, his daughter, Angelina, stood glaring at Gabriel Marquez.

A pounding began behind his left eye.

He had made his father’s small construction company into a billionaire real estate firm, he owned major chunks of multinational companies, he had palatial residences in nine different cities in the world, but this was one problem, it seemed, for which he had no solution.

Angelina had come to live with him three months ago after her mother had passed away suddenly—a model he had met in New York, years ago.

His own daughter was a stranger, because until the accident that had killed her, Monique hadn’t had the decency to tell Gabriel that he had a daughter.

Now Angelina looked at him as if he were a monster, as if he had taken away the one person who had loved her.

He hadn’t been able to have one normal conversation with her in all the weeks she had been in Drakon with him.

“Angelina, calm down and wait for my meeting to finish,” he gritted out. His jaw hurt with how tightly he had leashed the urge to vent his frustration that he was floundering just as much as she was.

That they were strangers to each other was not his fault.

His board members stared between him and Angie like spectators at a tennis match, ready to feed fuel to the wildly spreading rumors that Gabriel Marquez was an abysmal father.

Anything he did and said was news to the press. But the fact that he’d successfully hidden the existence of a daughter, who’d been born out of wedlock, for twelve years, sent them into a feeding frenzy. That his daughter hated him with every breath and, even worse, didn’t know him at all would be the cherry on a very nasty cake.

“If I waited for you to finish one of your unending meetings, I would wait forever. All I want is to—”

Gabriel shot up from his seat, frustration boiling over in his blood. “You behave like a spoiled brat, with no concern for others’ time. Has your mother taught you no manners?”

Her flinch fell on him like a poisoned dart, sinking deep. Goddamn it, nothing he said ever worked with Angelina. The tears that she had somehow contained in those big eyes fell onto her round cheeks, drawing paths down to her neck. “I wish you had died instead of Mom. I wish you weren’t my father. I wish—”

“Angelina! That’s enough,” a feminine voice shot out.

Shock traveled through Gabriel as his daughter, who’d barely exchanged one civil word with him in three months, instantly looked contrite. Her round shoulders straightened and something shifted in the planes of her juvenile face, already struggling to show signs of adulthood.

He startled when Eleni Drakos pushed her chair back and walked toward his daughter, her expression one of sternness and yet somehow kindness at the same time.

Gabriel frowned as her pumps click-clacked against the marble floor. In three months, he hadn’t been able to quite put his finger on the woman the media disparagingly called the Plain Princess.

An opinion he didn’t agree with anymore.

Unlike her tall, dark brothers, the Princes of Drakon, Eleni Drakos, on first impression, was a mousy woman. Ten years ago, she’d barely ever met his gaze, hiding behind King Theos’s fierce temper.

Since he’d arrived in Drakon a few months ago, however, he’d watched the brisk efficiency with which she ordered the palace staff around—and even his staff.

Every time he turned around, there she was, a petite dynamo. Only now, as he saw her reach Angelina, did he realize how much his staff and he had depended on her to smooth out numerous problems between his company and the palace in those first few weeks.

How much the Crown Prince Andreas and the Daredevil Nikandros relied on her.

His frown deepened as her slim hand went around Angelina.

She whispered something and instantly his daughter’s expression cleared. A hesitation emerged in her eyes but Angelina wiped her tears, and then to Gabriel’s shock, a tentative smile curved her mouth.

A tight ache emerged in the nether regions of Gabriel’s heart. Three months with a string of nannies each more expensive and efficient than the next, three months of gifts and presents to make up for twelve birthdays, three months of fighting the urge to tell her that it was not his fault, not once had Angelina looked at him with anything remotely bordering on the affection in her eyes as she looked at Eleni Drakos now.

What magic had the Princess wrought on his child? To what purpose? When had Angelina become acquainted with her?

Shock buffeted him in fresh waves when Eleni softly nudged Angelina toward him.

The wariness in his daughter’s eyes dealt a swift kick to his gut more painful and wretched than anything Gabriel had faced before. But for the life of him, he hadn’t been able to forge even a tenuous connection between them.

It was as if fate was laughing at him.

He’d willfully become this man who avoided emotional entanglement at any cost. Now, try as he might, it seemed he couldn’t connect with his own daughter.

“I’m sorry,” Angelina whispered, her eyes bright and big.

She didn’t call him Papa but he knew better than to expect a miracle. She turned to the Princess as if waiting for another cue, as if she could only bear to do this small thing—look at him without hatred—for the Princess.

Breath balled up in his throat, for he’d never felt this strange anticipation.

Hands firmly on those small shoulders, the Princess gave his daughter a cue.

Again, something about her smile snagged him while she and Angelina walked toward him. That his daughter, who treated him as if he were plague-ridden, had found someone to connect with should have been a good thing.

Instead, all he felt was a yawning chasm in the pit of his stomach.

“Now, Angelina,” the Princess said, and her voice shivered over his spine. The taste of her came to his lips, his hands fisting against the sensation of her curved hips. It was a sensation he hadn’t been able to get out of his head in three months, even as he’d become more and more aware of her husky, low-pitched voice, of the way her dress shirts seemed voluptuous on her body, of the tug of her mouth on one side when she was being sarcastic, of her every movement. Of the fact that she’d avoided meeting his eyes since that night at the masquerade ball.

No woman had ever messed with his head quite so much by trying to ignore him.

I just wanted a kiss, Gabriel.

Had she?

And now here she was with a wide smile bestowed on his daughter.

Muddy brown eyes glinted with warmth, the edges of them tilting up, revealing hints of heritage no one, he was sure, knew about.

The smile seemed to spread to her entire body as she looked at Angelina. It snagged his attention, and every other man’s attention, he noted with a flare of annoyance.

“Remember what we talked about,” she said. “First we express our anger and hurt in a constructive way instead of hurling accusations at someone, however well deserved they may be.”

His daughter nodded like an angel, lifting her chin in a show of condescension toward him. That put-upon anger and the skinny shoulders pretending to be so unaffected, caused Gabriel to feel a realization slam into him: hateful words or not, his daughter was very much just a kid.

And he wouldn’t have seen it if not for the woman silently glaring at him over Angie’s furiously nodding head. Her judgment of him was clear in her deepening frown.

“You went on your trip again. You not only left me with that...horrible nanny, but you also forgot my birthday. Mom would’ve never...” A choked sound emerged from Angie’s throat. “Mom told me you didn’t live with us because you were a busy man. Not because you didn’t care about me. But now... I know she was lying to protect me. It’s clear that you never wanted a daughter.”

Pushing away the Princess’s hand from her shoulder, Angie ran out of the boardroom, leaving a minefield of silence behind.

No, he’d never wanted a daughter. He hadn’t been in a relationship with her mother, which he thought was why she’d never told him.

And yet when he’d seen Angelina for the first time, Gabriel had known his life had forever changed. To his own surprise, he hadn’t felt an ounce of resentment.

He’d only wanted to welcome her into his life.

But Angelina wouldn’t give him a chance. Frustration and fury twisted inside him.

He took a few steps in her direction when he heard the soft command.

“Leave her alone, Mr. Marquez.” A pregnant pause, as if the Princess couldn’t believe her own audacity. “For now. Please. Don’t force her to take back those words just because your ego is smarting.”

A burning feeling emerged in his throat and Gabriel realized it was shame.

The Princess was right. He was only thinking about how this affected him, how he wanted to fight the tug of failure.

He’d moved mountains and built castles, immersed himself in the world’s real estate games, and yet he didn’t possess a single thing that would bring his daughter closer to him.

With one nod, he dismissed the meeting. He watched the quick shuffling of papers on the dark mahogany desk, heard the whisper of chairs as if it were all a background score, his attention fixed on the woman he had forced himself to ignore for three months.

And utterly failed.

He didn’t want to have anything to do with this woman who’d made it so easy to unburden himself. Who had, for the first time in his adult life, made him question his choices, his very lifestyle. Made him wonder about the depth of love his father had nurtured for his mother, before it had destroyed him.

* * *

She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. She shouldn’t have confronted him. She definitely shouldn’t have chastised him as if he were a negligent staff member.

Eleni sighed as her hands brushed against her soft leather bag.

Now he’d probably forbid Angelina from even seeing her. And while she’d miss Angelina with an ache, it would be so much worse for the little girl.

Only last week had Angelina started opening up to Eleni, since she’d come to see that Eleni had no hidden agenda that involved her father.

And now, because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, because she couldn’t bear to be ignored by Gabriel again, Angelina would lose the only adult she’d come to trust.

The hair on her nape stood in prickles as the room emptied around her.

Vibrating with a tension she couldn’t dispel, she straightened from the table. Gabriel Marquez stood at the corner of the room, a silent specter studying her with hair-raising intensity. “You’re full of neat little tricks, Princesa.”

Eleni stiffened. “I have nothing to say to you.”

He made his way across the room with soft strides for such a big man. Like a jungle cat. “I would say it was the opposite, judging by the looks you sent my way. I would say you were raring to rip into me.”

Eleni tilted her head back, struggling to keep her gaze away from the hard contours of his mouth. His lips had been so soft and demanding against hers. So full of passion and tender warmth. For days afterward, she’d marveled at the paradox of the man’s kiss, which matched the man himself—one moment warm and inviting, and the next cold and ruthless.

“Even the board members now know that you were dying to set me down about Angelina.”

Heat rushed into her cheeks and she struggled to keep her thoughts and her gaze from straying. “I...was trying to defuse the situation without further breaking her—” she flinched as his gaze became chilly “—heart. Even you must agree that Angelina’s feelings are the most important in that scene.”

“Even I?” His taunt was voiced in such a low tone that Eleni had to tilt closer to understand. Instantly, she was suffused in his male scent. Tendrils of warmth settled low in her belly as he reached her. “Explain.”

Any mortification she felt at her body’s alarming reaction to his nearness died at his curt tone. “Don’t bark commands at me.”

His gray eyes were cold and bleak, like a winter sky. “Maybe you think I’m one of the staff you order around with such brisk efficiency, Princesa. It would be in your best interests to remember who I am.”

She tried for a laugh, awareness flooding through her. His hands had traced her hips as if she were a precious treasure. His body had been a fortress of warmth. She couldn’t stop that rush of sensation so she held herself rigid instead. “Like you let anyone forget. This is ridiculous, Mr. Marquez. If you want to say something, then say it.”

He breathed out in a harsh exhale, tension wreathing his features. “Angelina and you have formed a bond.”

“Is there a question in that?” she taunted, ignoring the rational voice that said she was pulling the tail of a tiger.

He hesitated and Eleni saw something in those cold eyes that made her hesitate, rethink her opinion of him. Or at least not to condemn him so easily. “How? When?”

“When what?”

“When did you become close? How did you...have so much access to her?” His frown deepened as he searched her face. “It’s not like you sit around playing the charming socialite in the palace.”

Was he complimenting her or setting her down? Infuriating man! “I... I... The task of setting up quarters and such for the string of nannies you employed for her fell to me. When you disappeared on your long and frequent business trips, the task of making sure they did their job fell to me. I think it was the second one. Or the third. The poor woman couldn’t find Angelina one day for hours and raised an alarm.

“You were in... Sydney, I think. Since you brought her to Drakon,” she couldn’t resist adding, “I noticed that Angelina always drifts toward the stables. I found her there that afternoon, hiding in my mare’s stall. Angelina loves horses—did you know that? I invited her to spend some time during the day with me at the stables. And we...we got close,” she finished, her face a swath of color.

Somehow, spending time with Angelina had become the high point of her day. Had filled the gaping hole in her life after her father’s death and Andreas’s uncharacteristic departure.

“But what did you do? And why? I want to know what you did to get so close to her, Ms. Drakos.”

He looked so befuddled that Eleni bit back her temper and sighed. “I didn’t do it for some nefarious purpose.”

He ran his hands through his hair, tight grooves etching around his mouth. “I’m not accusing you,” he said, though his tone did just that. “I’m curious as to what you did, what techniques you employed, what...incentives you offered to get close to Angelina.”

“She’s not a business deal you’re trying to close,” she burst out, remembering her own confusion at that age.

“I have never lost a business deal in my life.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She exhaled roughly and willed herself to be patient. For that twelve-year-old, if not for the arrogant Spaniard in front of her.

For three months, she’d tried to pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened. That it hadn’t been the most glorious moment of her life, even when he’d pushed her away with such apparent disgust. That her heart didn’t speed up every time she laid eyes on him.

That she didn’t hope in the farthest corners of her heart that he would look at her with that passion in his eyes again, that he would see her as a woman and not as a part of the palace machinery. That he would kiss her again, just one more time.

But no.

Five layers of makeup, a dress that displayed every curve and a sign around her neck that said she was willing and wanton. And of course, her identity hidden behind a mask.

That was the only way he would want her apparently.

She swallowed away the disappointment as she always did, tired of her own pathetic longing. There were years of his company’s work still to be done in Drakon. Was she going to spend the next decade mooning over one kiss that meant nothing to him, like she had mourned the last decade over Spiros and his vows of undying devotion, even after he’d disappeared like mist?

“Angelina, for all that she’s been forced to grow up in the past few months, is a little girl. With feelings and emotions. She lost the one person who loved her unconditionally. She’s been thrust into an unfamiliar world with a man—”

“It has been eight months since her mother died.”

“Eight months is an entire lifetime for her. You can’t just...buy her things and expect everything to be all right. You can’t just slot into her life and expect her to love you like she did her mother. Not by leaving her with a string of nannies. Not by engaging her in a battle of wills. And definitely not by demanding her affection and love.”

“Those nannies came highly recommended with years of experience in dealing with kids.”

“But not a single one of them tried to understand her. It was all just schedules and milestones and you can’t just ignore...” She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat.

He tucked a finger under her chin and tilted it up. “I can’t just ignore what?”

She wished she could hide the expression in her eyes. Erase the hurt from that corner of her heart that never seemed to heal. “You can’t fix the loss of her mom by throwing her into the deep end. She’s among strangers in a foreign country and she barely sees you. She...she told me last week that she wanted to run away because of what that ghastly girlfriend of yours told her.”

If he wasn’t holding her chin in his hands, she would have missed his flinch. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s an ex. She...said she had experience with kids...that she could help me connect with Angelina.”

Now she understood the lineup of exes and “girlfriends” that had been appearing outside his office in the last few weeks. It had taken every ounce of her willpower not to march in there and demand that he send them away. For Angelina’s sake.

“Could you not see that they were just using Angelina like some stepping stone toward you?”

She saw it sink in. His jaw tightened. “And you, Princesa? You do not have any purpose?”

His gaze promptly fell to her mouth, a languid stroke against her senses. “I told you—I have no designs on you.”

“You knew who I was and yet you still kissed me.”

“Because my requirements for that night were to kiss a man. You fit the bill. If you hadn’t ripped my mask off, I’d have been on my way and no one—”

“If I hadn’t ripped the mask off—” his harsh breath purred over her cheeks “—I would have been inside you, right on that balcony, with your brother and half the world watching.”

Gravelly and low, his words rippled over her skin. Places she shouldn’t be thinking of throbbed with need. “Ripping off the mask was the only sensible thing that happened that night.”

“I would have—” she licked her lips as if that could stave off the heat pouring through her “—stopped you. It wouldn’t have gone that far.”

His gaze held hers, amusement and something else glittering there. “Either you’re very naive about men or you just like to lie to yourself.” A rough exhale left his mouth. “And now I find you, of all the people in my life, bonded with my daughter.”

Eleni pushed away from him, needing respite from that overwhelming masculinity. Respite from her own reactions. “Even your conceit can’t be that great to think I befriended Angelina with some...underhanded intentions. Sitting in the stables by herself, she reminded me of myself.”

“A Princess of Drakon, daughter to King Theos and sister to powerful Andreas and Nikandros—and I’m to believe you understand how Angelina feels? That you have to hide beneath a mask to find a man to kiss you?”

She shrugged, the gleam of interest in his eyes making her heart thud faster. If not for Angelina, he wouldn’t have spared her a single glance again, much less a conversation.

“I don’t care what you believe about me. Angelina needs to feel like she’s important to someone, like there’s some constant in her life that won’t desert her. She’s a sweet girl underneath all that bluster.”

“She’s sweet with you,” he bit out, a vein vibrating in his forehead. “The first time I saw my daughter was at her mother’s funeral. It took her a week to understand that I was indeed her father and not some terrifying stranger who was ripping her away from everything familiar. I learned after my ex was in an accident that she had named me as Angelina’s father.

“In three months, she hasn’t stopped looking at me as if I...were the culprit.

“My own daughter looks at me as if I...” He swallowed hard and looked away. “I’ve tried to be gentle with her... I’ve tried gifts. I’ve tried everything under the sun but not a damn thing works.”

Eleni hoped for the little girl’s sake that he would learn to express that concern. To show that he cared. But she’d been around too many thickheaded men, and Gabriel Marquez had proved that night that he was the king of arrogant ruthlessness and wouldn’t recognize tender emotion if it hit him in that all too gorgeous face.

He’d connected with her that night when he’d thought her a stranger. But as soon as he’d learned her identity, as soon as he’d learned that she knew him, he had shut down. Had closed himself off so fast that for days after she’d wondered if she’d imagined their exchange.

She wanted nothing to do with such a hard man, a man who thought showing his emotions was a weakness.

But for Angelina’s sake, she wanted to help. She remembered all too well how alone and frightened she had been growing up in the palace. It was only when her father had married Camille, Nikandros’s mother that Eleni had realized that not everyone in the palace resented the illegitimate child that the King had adopted in a fit of uncharacteristic generosity.

Camille had been so busy with Nik’s frail health, and yet she’d always had a kind word for Eleni.

“Never let him see a weakness, ma chérie,” when Eleni had cowered in the face of her father’s rages. “Never let them make you dispensable,” when Eleni had, in her innocent ignorance, complained that the Crown Prince Andreas, the older brother she loved so much, didn’t care about her either.

So Eleni had taken Camille’s advice to heart and made herself indispensable to her father and brothers. She had never imagined becoming the buffer between the three of them.

As she’d observed this father and daughter over the last three months, she’d assumed Gabriel was the same as her own father: controlling, bloated with arrogance, treating his offspring like pawns in his own personal game.

The glittering frustration in Gabriel’s eyes gave her hope for Angelina.

“She feels that you’ve taken her on as a last resort. With me, she knows I love spending time with her. That I don’t expect anything in return, that it is not a duty.”

Gabriel’s gaze moved over her, searching without seeing her. She’d seen that look on her older brother Andreas’s face—when he saw people only as a means to an end. When he decided on a course and set upon it, no matter what the cost to others. Her heart thumped in her chest.

“Then you’ll teach me how to get through to her,” he added softly, utter resolve in his tone, “and you’ll help the both of us connect.”

“It’s not something I can transfer from my head to yours.”

“I do not care what you call it, Princesa, but you’ll teach me how to connect with my daughter.” Stubborn resolve made his features look harsher than ever. “And you will do it before it’s too late.”

“What you’re suggesting is...not that simple.”

“I will speak to Nikandros about releasing you from all your many unofficial duties. From now on, you’ll spend your entire time with Angelina. And me, whenever I’m available.” His brow cleared, everything falling into place in his world. Even her soft gasp didn’t divert his attention. “I’ll try to clear my schedule for a couple of evenings every week and we will dine together. After a month or so, the three of us can take a trip together. I want to find a good school for her and you can accompany us.”

The man’s nerve! “I’m not your servant to be ordered about. I will not drop everything in my life just for your benefit. I will not...” She couldn’t even get the words out at his arrogance. “You insult me with one breath, and then order me around on the next.”

Spending months in his company, wishing he would take notice of her, comparing herself to his parade of girlfriends—it would be her personal torture device. “What makes you think I would willingly sign up for anything that concerns you?”

“Because you do not have anything going on in your life. I’ve been watching you, Princesa.”

Eleni jerked back, her heart thumping against her rib cage. “Watching me? For what purpose?”

He shrugged, just like she’d done before. And if Eleni hadn’t spent an hour with him on a moonlit terrace sharing the depths of her soul, she wouldn’t have seen the carefully manufactured gesture. She’d have missed that utterly male gleam in his gaze.

“To figure you out.”

“And what have you figured out?”

“You’re illegitimate, so you don’t rank that high with the traditionalists of the country. You have no boyfriend or lover and no options on the horizon, unless you ask your brothers to set you up. And they are smart enough to keep you around because of course you’re sensible and reliable.

“I’ve seen you with your brothers and the staff. You’re a very maternal sort of woman. You know every staff member by name, and you ask after their families. You give hours of your time to children’s charities instead of just throwing money at them. And your reckless actions that night prove how desperate you are for your life to change. For it to be more than it is.”

Shock robbed Eleni of speech as she stared at him. He’d so efficiently reduced her life to a cold, hard summary, a truthful one. “First I was deceiving, now I’m reckless?”

“Imagine if it had been anyone but me. Imagine if it had been one of the media or a man who could have harmed you in some way. You don’t walk around parties advertising you’re available, not when you’re the bloody Princess of Drakon.”

Eleni stared stupefied, the unease in his eyes far too real for her to scoff at. “I... I wouldn’t have just walked off with any man.”

He raised that arrogant brow and she flushed and looked away.

They both knew she’d have done whatever he wanted of her that night. And that awareness stood between them, taunting her.

“Allowing that you truly care for Angelina, what I suggest would not be a hardship at all. All I ask you is that you spend your time in the lap of luxury with Angelina and me.”

“For how long?” she whispered, unable to resist. Unable to walk away from him.

“Until such time as I feel you’re not needed anymore.”

“So you’re offering me a job?”

“Call it whatever you want, Princess. Money, jewels, stocks...you can have whatever you want in return.”

A job description with a tenure and conditions. Just another man demanding his due without giving anything back. Just another role for her to play for a limited time. Like she’d always done, filled with the nauseating hope that it would last.

The reliable, responsible daughter to her father.

The buffer between her brothers.

The woman that the man she’d loved had easily and thoroughly forgotten.

The illegitimate but adopted child of the House of Drakos.

All temporary. All meaningless, in the end.

If she accepted his “offer,” she would lose a bit of her heart to that little girl, and when she’d served her purpose, Gabriel would calmly remove her from his life. And yet, she wanted to do it. She wanted to spend time with him and Angelina, wanted to help them bridge that gap before it came irreparable.

She wanted to see more of the man she’d talked to that night. Heart thudding dangerously, she admitted that she wanted a chance for him to notice that she was a woman, to remember that he’d kissed her with such abandon.

She jerked in place when he cupped her jaw and tilted her face up to meet his gaze. Slumbering heat glittered there, reminding her of what had happened the last time he’d touched her. Tempting her. Her hesitation was ammunition as he cornered her with a predatory gleam. “Admit it, Princess.” Eleni shivered when his hot breath caressed the rim of her ear. “You’re tempted.”

“Whatever I learned about you that night, I... I kept it to myself. I...trusted that man. But you...you play dirty, Gabriel.”

“I play to win, Princesa. I always have.” His brow rose as he searched her gaze. “It is clear that you truly care for Angelina. And if you agree, maybe I can be persuaded to overlook your deception.” His thumb traced the line of her jaw, a featherlight stroke that branded her. The sound of her harsh breaths filled the silence, her body swaying toward him with a will of its own. She raised her gaze, frowning.

“I could even be persuaded to kiss you again, Princesa. I could give you all the excitement you crave, all the daring moments you want. I might even be willing to show you the passion that you desperately want.’

Toes scrunched in her sensible pumps, body thrumming like a tautly stretched string, Eleni stared into his beautiful gray eyes.

His breath caressed her lips, his gaze studying her as if she were the most beautiful woman on earth. She felt drugged, and he hadn’t even touched her. “So you’re offering me—” somehow she spoke “—an affair in return for looking after your child?”

“We want each other, yes? It’s not a big leap from that.”

What would happen when she spent days in his company with just a little girl for buffer? What would happen when he didn’t stop the next time? When she’d be all twisted and tangled into their lives and he decided he didn’t need her anymore?

Where would she land then?

In the same place, with her heart bruised again by another careless man.

Better that she and Angelina cut that cord now before the damage to that young girl was permanent. Before Eleni herself forgot that no man was worth the heartache that she’d already tasted, thanks to Spiros. Thanks to her father.

Love was not for her, whatever silly dreams she wove.

She put her hand on his wrist and pushed it away. Her palm burned at that innocent contact. Her body whimpered silently at the promise in his eyes. “No.”

“No what?”

“No to everything you suggested.”

“Why not?”

Suddenly, the idea she’d been playing with in her head for a while now was the only lifeline. She would go away. Away from this man and his little girl who already owned a part of Eleni’s heart. Away from the unending void that her life had seemed to be lately. “I plan to leave Drakon for a while.”

His jaw tightened. From one breath to the next, his gaze became hard, all the heat gone. “How long is a while?”

“Months. Maybe a year.” She stepped away, needing the distance. “I’ve always wanted to see the world and this is my chance.”

“And what about Drakon and your duties? What about your precious brothers?”

“Nikandros has convinced me that they’ll be here for the rest of our lives. I’ve never once left Drakon. I’ve seen nothing of the world beyond this palace and its walls. It is time for me to step out.”

Time for her to reach for what she wanted.

Spending all this time with Angelina, nurturing their relationship, seeing the joy that came into the young girl’s eyes when she and Eleni spent time together—it gave form to what Eleni herself desperately craved.

She would never love a man. But being a mother to a baby, bringing love into a child’s life—someone unwanted, like she’d been—that she could do. That was in her hands.

“I wish I could help you, at least for her sake. But I just can’t. I can’t put my life on hold for anyone. Not anymore.”

“When do you plan to leave?”

“In a week maybe. At the most, two. I would like to break it to Angelina with you there. I... I don’t care whether you believe me or not, Mr. Marquez, but I do care about her. So much. If you care about her, and it seems like you do, then tell her that. Show it with your actions.

“And please, stop letting your ego get in the way of it.”

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