She didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know that the perimeter of his estate was walled and patrolled and every security measure had been taken to make Castle Ros one of the safest places in Europe—whether for a head of state needing protection or his own woman and daughter.

His gaze rested on Logan’s profile.

His woman.

She was.

She’d been his from the moment he laid eyes on her at the auction. She hadn’t even known that he’d seen her long before she’d noticed him. He’d picked her from the others, chosen her from every woman there as the one he’d wanted, and he’d willed it, made it happen, focusing on her so that she couldn’t help but know who he was...couldn’t help but feel his interest and desire.

She, who was working that night at the auction, had scrambled to bid, and he’d kept his attention locked on her throughout the bidding, and she’d done what he’d demanded...

She’d won him.

And he’d rewarded her. All night long.

And as the night turned to morning, he’d lain in bed next to her, watching her sleep and listening to her breathe, and wondering how to keep her and incorporate her into a life where he was rarely in one place long.

He was a bachelor. He needed to be a bachelor. And yet with her he felt settled, committed. He felt as if he’d come home, which was impossible as he’d never had a true home. He’d never belonged anywhere—he’d shifted between continents and countries, languages and cultures. Rowan had been raised as a nomad and outsider, caught between his fierce, moody, ambitious Greek father and his kind but unstable Irish mother. After the initial love-lust wore off, his parents couldn’t get along. He still remembered the arguing when he was very young. They fought because there was never enough money, and never enough success. His father was full of schemes and plans, always looking for that one big break that would make him rich, while his mother just wanted peace. She didn’t need a big windfall, she just wanted his father home. And then his father hit the jackpot, or so he thought, until he was arrested and sent to prison for white-collar crime.

The time away broke the family.

It broke what was left of the marriage and his mother.

Or maybe what broke the marriage, and his mother, was losing Devlin, Rowan’s little brother. Devlin drowned while Father was in prison.

Rowan tensed, remembering. Devlin’s death at two and three quarters had been the beginning of the end.

Rowan’s father blamed Rowan’s mother. Rowan’s mother blamed Rowan’s father. And then Rowan’s father was out of jail, and the fighting just started over again. Rowan was glad to be sent to boarding school in England, and he told himself he was glad when his parents finally separated, because maybe, finally, the fighting would end. But the divorce dragged on for years, and school holidays became increasingly chaotic and painful. Sometimes he’d visit one parent in one country, while other times neither parent wanted him and if there was no classmate to invite him home, he’d remain at school, which was in many ways preferable to visits with strangers, including his parents who became little more than strangers as the years went by.

After finishing school, he went to university in America, and then returned to Britain to serve in the Royal Navy and never again returned home. Because there was no home. He’d never felt at home, which is why the attachment to Logan had been unsettling.

How could she feel like home when he didn’t know what home was? How could he care for her when he didn’t know her?

It had been almost a relief to discover she was a Copeland. She had been too good to be true. His rage had been swift and focused, and he’d let her feel the full impact of his disappointment. But it wasn’t Logan he was truly angry with. He was angry with himself for dropping his guard and allowing himself to feel. Emotions were dangerous.