LITMIR.BIZ

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were Dido and Dorkas, Nikolai’s great-aunts, and an array of other Greek family members, whom Nikolai and Ella had grown particularly friendly with during their frequent stays in the house on Crete.

      ‘I find you sexy in anything. Naked, clothed, it doesn’t matter, latria mou,’ her husband assured her under cover of their son’s chatter, lean fingers spreading caressingly on her hip. ‘I’m shockingly lacking in standards in that line. I’ll take you any way I can have you.’

      Ella risked a quick kiss that smudged her lipstick and turned into something a little longer than either of them planned.

      ‘That’s not cool, Dad,’ Tobias pronounced in disgust.

      A highly amused grin slashed Nikolai’s expressive mouth. ‘I can assure you that it was very cool. We can catch up while I get changed,’ he told his wife, grabbing her hand and only pausing on the stairs to greet his father-in-law and Gramma.

      ‘I should be downstairs being a hostess,’ Ella hissed guiltily.

      ‘When you put Gramma with my great-aunts, we’re coming down with hostesses who love to host. Anyway, I have something to tell you,’ he announced, thrusting open their bedroom door. ‘About Cyrus.’

      ‘Cyrus?’ Ella repeated in surprise, because she rarely thought now about the older man, who had received a lengthy prison sentence for his role in the hotel fire and the death of Nikolai’s bar manager. While on bail for those crimes, Cyrus had also been accused of rape by a young woman in his employ and he had been found guilty of that offence as well.

      ‘He’s apparently in hospital after an attack by fellow inmates. He’s not expected to survive,’ Nikolai informed her flatly. ‘Marika phoned me to tell me.’

      ‘And how does that make you feel?’ Ella prompted anxiously.

      ‘As though it really is all over now and I can put it behind me,’ Nikolai confessed. ‘When his sentence was extended because of the rape, I felt that my sister was finally vindicated and I haven’t really thought about Makris since then.’

      ‘That’s how it should be. It’s over.’ Ella wrapped her arms round him and rested her head against his chest, loving the reassuring beat of his heart and the heat of him on a cold wintry evening. ‘We have more positive matters on our agenda.’

      ‘Oh... I get it. You thought I only brought you up here to throw you on the bed? How could you think that?’ Nikolai demanded, struggling to look offended.

      ‘Because I know your sleek, sneaky ways, Mr Drakos,’ Ella told him lovingly. ‘No, I have other news. I’m pregnant again and this time around I’m telling you the same day I found out.’

      Nikolai swung her up into his arms and kissed her with passionate satisfaction. They had waited to extend their family until their lives were more settled, but conception had taken several months longer than they had initially hoped. ‘That’s the best Christmas present yet!’ he swore.

      ‘No, that was our first Christmas when you brought me here to this house and told me it was ours,’ Ella contradicted.

      ‘And you were enraged that I’d picked a house and the furniture without getting you involved,’ Nikolai reminded her.

      ‘You did remarkably well on your own,’ Ella said as she freed him of his tie and began to push his jacket off his shoulders. ‘Take your clothes off, Mr Drakos.’

      ‘I love it when you get domineering,’ Nikolai teased, gazing down at his tiny wife with hotly appreciative dark eyes. ‘I love you, latria mou.’

      ‘I love you too...’

      And they kissed, initially tenderly and then more passionately. The three elderly ladies downstairs were terrific hostesses and ensured that dinner was put back until the owners of the house had reappeared with a noticeable glow of happy contentment surrounding them.

      * * * * *

       Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed

      Michelle Smart

      This book is for Renata - thanks for feeding my coffee addiction! xxx

       CHAPTER ONE

      THE SCREAM PIERCED through the silence of the Nutmeg Island chapel.

      Gabriele Mantegna, having just climbed up the stairs from the basement, came to an abrupt halt.

      Where the hell had that come from?

      He switched off his torch, plunging the chapel into complete darkness, and listened hard.

      Had that been a woman’s scream? Surely not? Tonight, only the armed security crew inhabited the island.

      Closing the basement door carefully, he walked to the one small window of the chapel not made of stained glass. It was too dark to see anything but after a moment a faint light appeared in the distance. It came from the Ricci house where at that moment an armed gang were helping themselves to all the priceless works of art and antiquities.

      The island’s security crew were blind to the gang, their monitors remotely tampered with and feeding them falsehoods.

      Gabriele checked his watch and grimaced. He’d been on the island ten minutes longer than planned. Every extra minute increased his chances of getting caught. To reach the beach on the south side of the island, from where he would swim to safety, was a further ten-minute walk.

      But he hadn’t imagined the scream. He couldn’t in good conscience make his escape without checking it out.

      Swearing under his breath, Gabriele pushed open the heavy chapel door and stepped out into the warm Caribbean air. The next time Ignazio Ricci decided on a spot of peace and contemplation, he would find the code for the chapel alarm scrambled.

      For a building designed for peaceable contemplation and worship, the Ricci chapel had been desecrated by Ignazio’s real purpose.

      It had all been there, directly beneath the chapel altar, in a basement stuffed with files dating back decades. A secret trail of blood money, the underbelly of the Ricci empire, hidden from the outside world. In the short time Gabriele had been in the basement he’d uncovered enough evidence of illegal dealings to have Ignazio spend the rest of his life in prison. He, Gabriele Mantegna, would personally hand the copied incriminating documents to the FBI. He would be there every day of the trial, seating himself so that Ignazio, the man who’d killed his father, would not be able to avoid seeing him.

      When the judge’s sentence was pronounced Ignazio would know that it was he who had sent him down.

      But everything wasn’t sunshine yet. The most important evidence for Gabriele, the documents that would have cleared his own name and exonerated his father once and for all, had not been found.

      The evidence existed. He would find it if it took him the rest of his life.

      Putting the missing evidence from his mind, Gabriele set out into the thick canopy of trees and, crouching low, made his way to the Ricci house, a huge villa set over three levels.

      Lights shone from a downstairs window. Any subterfuge by the gang had been abandoned.

      Something had gone wrong.

      The men in the house were led by a criminal mastermind who went by the moniker of Carter. Carter’s specialisation was in purloining high-end goods for order. Ming vases. Picassos. Caravaggios. Blue Diamonds. There wasn’t a security system in the world, so the legend went, that Carter couldn’t crack. He also had a knack of knowing where the shadier elements of high society kept their even shadier valuables, the type of valuables the owner most certainly would not report to the authorities. Carter took those items for himself.

      The

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