LYNNE GRAHAM: Christakis's Rebellious Wife

Nine months to save their marriage!

Nik Christakis had once been her Prince Charming, the indecently rich and devilishly handsome tycoon who took Betsy away from her life as a waitress and did the unimaginable—made her his wife! But married life wasn’t the fantasy she’d envisioned.

Now, as her hand hovers over the divorce papers, Betsy sees something in her husband’s eyes…a glimmer of the man she first fell in love with. But when this encounter ends in reckless passion, Betsy is left with two very unexpected consequences that will forever tie her to the man she was determined to forget!

‘I gather you want to talk.’

Nik spun back to her with the liquid grace of movement that had always caught her eye and frowned at her, black brows drawn down, wide, sensual mouth twisting in dismissal.

‘No. I don’t want to talk,’ he told Betsy abruptly, before he tossed back the finger of Scotch whisky he had poured neat and set down the empty glass again.

‘Then why—?’ she began in confusion.

‘Se thelo…I want you,’ he heard himself admit, before he was even aware that the words were on his tongue.

So Nik—so explosively unpredictable, Betsy reasoned abstractedly, colour rushing into her cheeks as a hot wave of awareness engulfed her. Jewel-bright eyes assailed hers in an almost physical collision, and something low and intimate in her body clenched hard. Her legs turned so weak she wasn’t convinced they were still there to hold her up, but she was held in stasis by the intensity of his narrowed green gaze.

‘And you want me,’ he told her thickly.

THE LEGACIES OF POWERFUL MEN

Three tenets to live by: money, power and the ruthless pursuit of passion!

Cristo Ravelli, Nik Christakis and Zarif al-Rastani know better than most the double-edged sword of their inheritance. Watching their father move from one wife to another, leaving their mothers devastated in his wake, has hardened each of these men against the lure of love.

But, despite their best efforts to live by the principles of money, power and passion, they find themselves entangled with three women who challenge the one thing they’ve protected all these years…

Their hearts!

Read Cristo’s story in:

RAVELLI’S DEFIANT BRIDE

June 2014

Read Nik’s story in:

CHRISTAKIS’S REBELLIOUS WIFE

July 2014

And read Zarif’s story in:

ZARIF’S CONVENIENT QUEEN

August 2014!

Christakis’s Rebellious Wife

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Recent titles by the same author:

RAVELLI'S DEFIANT BRIDE

(The Legacies of Powerful Men) THE DIMITRAKOS PROPOSITION CHALLENGING DANTE (A Bride for a Billionaire) THE BILLIONAIRE'S TROPHY (A Bride for a Billionaire)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my daughter Rachel with warm appreciation for all her support.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

‘A DIVORCE CAN be civilised,’ Cristo Ravelli pronounced in a tone of studious tact.

Nik Christakis almost vented a derisive laugh at such a statement from the brother barely two months his senior. In reality only genuine respect for his sibling kept his cutting tongue silent. After all, what could Cristo possibly know about the blood and mayhem of a bitter divorce? Cristo was a newly and very happily married man without that experience...or that of many other unpleasant life events, in Nik’s considered opinion. As a result, Cristo was as solid and straight as a ruler; he had no corners, no twists, no hidden places. He had no more concept of Nik’s infinitely more complex and darker life experience than a dinosaur catapulted into a fairy story full of fluffy wings and magic.

‘I know you’re probably wondering where I get the nerve to offer advice,’ Cristo remarked shrewdly. ‘But you and Betsy did once have a good relationship and ratcheting down the current tension and cooling the aggro would be healthier for both of you—’

‘Then you should be delighted to hear that Betsy and I are having a face-to-face meeting tomorrow in the presence of our lawyers in an effort to iron out a settlement,’ Nik growled, his lean, darkly handsome features grim and hard.

‘It’s only money, Nik, and... Dio mio...’ Cristo sighed, thinking wryly of the vast business empire that his workaholic tycoon brother had built from the ground up ‘...you have plenty of it—’

Nik ground his perfect white teeth together, his unusually light green eyes flashing bright with barely restrained fury. ‘That’s not the point!’ he cut in harshly. ‘Betsy’s trying to take me to the cleaners and steal half of everything I have—’

‘I can’t explain why she’s making such excessive demands. I would’ve sworn she didn’t have a mercenary bone in her body,’ Cristo fielded uncomfortably. ‘Have you tried to talk to her, Nik?’

Nik frowned darkly. ‘Why would I try to talk to her?’ he asked in astonishment at a suggestion that clearly struck him as insane. ‘She threw me out of our home, started a divorce and is currently trying to rip me off to the tune of billions!’

‘She did have some excuse for throwing you out,’ Cristo reminded his sibling in a rueful undertone.

In answer, Nik compressed his lips. He had his own very firm ideas about exactly why his marriage had imploded. He had married a woman who said she didn’t want children and then she had changed her mind. It was true that he had chosen to withhold certain very private information from her in the aftermath of that revelation but he had understandably assumed that her change of heart was a whim or at best hormonal, an urge that might hopefully fade as quickly as it had first arrived.

‘It was my house,’ Nik responded flatly.

‘So now you’re planning to take Lavender Hall off her as well as the dog,’ Cristo breathed heavily.

‘Gizmo was also mine.’ Nik glanced at the disputed dog, returned to his care two months earlier and still a study of deep doggy depression. Gizmo slumped by the window, an array of squeaky toys lying around him untouched, his short muzzle resting mournfully on shaggy paws. The animal had the best of everything that money could buy but, in spite of Nik’s every effort to the contrary, the wretched mutt continued to pine for Betsy.

‘Have you any idea how devastated she was when you took the dog off her?’ Cristo enquired.

‘The three pages of tear-stained care instructions that came with him did provide a hint,’ Nik breathed sardonically. ‘She was more worried about the dog than she ever was about me—’

‘Less than a year ago, Betsy adored you!’ Cristo shot back at his brother in condemnation of that unfeeling response.

And he had liked being adored, Nik acknowledged; he had liked it very much indeed. When adoration had turned to violent hatred and questions he couldn’t answer he had had no appetite whatsoever for the new regime. Questions he could have answered had he been forced to do so, he qualified inwardly, but he could not have stood to see the look of pity or horror on her face should he have told her the truth. Some truths a man was entitled to keep private; some were simply too appalling to share.