Ravelli's Defiant Bride by Lynne Graham

Author:Lynne Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

CRISTO STRODE OUTSIDE to greet his brother, Nik. The two men stopped on the terrace to talk. Belle hovered, hearing an animated exchange between the men in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like Italian and she wondered if it could be Greek. When she heard the other man expostulate loudly several times she guessed that Cristo was telling him about her mother and the children and she winced uncomfortably, feeling agonisingly self-conscious.

Nik Christakis was a big man, even taller than her bridegroom, but he did bear a strong resemblance to Cristo. Nik frowned across the room at her and his frown only darkened more when he saw the young child standing by her side.

‘My wife, Belle, and our youngest little brother, Franco,’ Cristo imparted in calm explanation in response to his brother’s interrogative look. ‘My brother, Nik.’

‘Our?’ Nik queried straight away. ‘The child’s nothing to do with me. Five of them? You would have to be crazy to take that on, Cristo! Gaetano’s dead and buried. What does it matter what comes out about him now?’

‘It would matter to Zarif,’ Cristo countered squarely.

‘Like I care about that!’ Nik quipped darkly, digging into an inside pocket on his jacket to extract a document, which he extended to his brother. ‘Read it and weep. Learn what happens when you get married without a pre-nup.’

‘We didn’t have a pre-nup,’ Belle remarked awkwardly, uneasy with the tension flowing around them, and Nik’s reluctance to even acknowledge her, never mind make polite conversation.

Cristo raised his dark gaze slowly from the document to say, ‘I have to admit that I’m surprised.’

‘Are you? Are you still that naïve? Obviously Betsy married me for my money and now she’s trying to steal half of everything I own!’ Nik declared with raw, unconcealed bitterness.

‘She didn’t marry you for your money,’ Cristo contradicted with quiet assurance. ‘She fell in love with you.’

‘Don’t be naïve. I give you and your wife and her little bunch of Ravelli by-blows two years at most before she walks out and tries to take the shirt off your back!’ Nik vented with ringing derision.

Belle flushed and lifted her chin. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Look, I’ll leave you two to talk in private,’ she completed, anchoring Franco’s hand in her own.

As she left she heard Nik Christakis cursing, something that was instantly recognisable in many languages. She realised that she was very grateful not to be married to a man like that. Nik’s hard-featured face, cold eyes, not to mention the smouldering bitterness that escaped every time he mentioned his estranged wife, Betsy, chilled Belle to the marrow. Nik was clearly tough, obstinate, furiously hostile and, she suspected, the sort of man who would make an implacable enemy, a man who saw only the worst in anyone who crossed him.

Cristo, she reasoned, was more reasonable, more civilised...wasn’t he? She respected him for speaking up in defence of his sister-in-law. Furthermore the night before she had been surprised and reluctantly impressed when Cristo had suggested that complete honesty between them might well be the way to make their marriage work.

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