LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my editor, Kim—

       many, many thanks.

      CONTENTS

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      ‘NIKOS! You’ve got to do something! You’ve got to! The little trollop has got her claws into Stephanos so deep he can’t see straight!’

      Nikos Kiriakis looked down at the woman lying in the hospital bed. She looked dreadful, and it stabbed at him painfully. Her face was pale and drawn, and she looked ten years older than her thirty-nine years. Though it had been only a minor operation medically, psychologically it had taken a much greater toll.

      And, as if that wasn’t enough, now it seemed her husband had chosen this moment of all times to be unfaithful.

      Nikos’s dark gold-flecked eyes hardened. His older sister had been a devoted wife to Stephanos Ephandrou—she didn’t deserve this. Not now.

      Not when a doctor had just told her that the results of a laparoscopy were showing that both her Fallopian tubes were irreparably damaged. That her desperate years of trying to give Stephanos the child he longed for had been, as she had so feared, totally in vain.

      Nikos had tried to take the most optimistic line with Demetria when she’d relayed the results to him just now. Told her that at least the doctors now had a reason for her continued infertility, and that there were methods of assisted conception available that held out hope for her still, even at her age. She might still be able to give Stephanos a child—she must not give up trying.

      Then Demetria had dropped her bombshell.

      ‘He doesn’t even want a child from me! He’s got another woman!’

      Her voice had been strained and bitter. Very bitter.

      Stunned, Nikos had heard her out. Of all the men he knew, Stephanos Ephandrou had seemed to be the last husband to run a mistress. He had always been devoted to Demetria, had even said when he married her that he was glad her first marriage had borne no children rather than view it as what it was—a warning that perhaps all was not well with his twenty-nine-year-old bride’s reproductive system.

      Stephanos had married her after he’d finally persuaded her to divorce her chronically philandering first husband—her late father’s choice for her, a socially suitable match for a Kiriakis, who had seen no reason to stifle his sexual proclivities on that account. And now it looked as if Stephanos was cut from the same cloth as Demetria’s first husband—or worse. For what could be said about a man who was prepared to chase after another woman when his own wife was battling with infertility?

      He lowered his tall frame, clad in an impeccably cut business suit, carefully onto the side of Demetria’s bed. His handmade jacket eased across his broad shoulders as he took her hands, rubbing them gently.

      ‘Demi, are you sure you’re not imagining things? Stephanos would never be so cruel, so dishonourable.’

      His sister clutched his hands, flexing her thin shoulders forward from the pillows supporting her.

      ‘I’m not imagining things! He’s found some blonde twenty-five-year-old and he’s set her up where he can go and visit her whenever he can. He’s there with her now. He’s obsessed with her—he’s changed completely. I can tell. I can tell!’

      Her voice rose dangerously.

      ‘You’ve got to help me, Nik. You’ve got to!’

      Nikos let go of her hands.

      ‘You say you know where he has installed her? Tell me everything else you know about this,’ Nikos instructed calmly. He was subduing his own instinct, which was to seek out Stephanos and beat him to a pulp. But that wouldn’t help his sister.

      Demetria swallowed heavily and took a difficult breath.

      ‘Her name is Janine Fareham. She picked Stephanos up at Heathrow the last time he was in London. He flew her straight out here and set her up.’

      ‘In Athens?’ Nikos asked sharply. His mind was racing. To pick up a rich, middle-aged man at an airport and be installed in luxury by him the following day was fast work—the girl must be skilful indeed! Unconsciously, his sculpted mouth curled in disdain.

      Demetria was shaking her head.

      ‘No, he’s put her in that latest resort of his on Skarios.’ Her voice became strained and bitter again, ‘Maybe that way he thinks I won’t know what he’s up to!’

      Nikos frowned slightly.

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘Philip,’ Demetria answered simply. ‘I made him tell me. Stephanos was behaving so strangely—I knew something was up.’

      Nikos nodded, not all that surprised. Philip was Stephanos’s right-hand man in the office, and usually the soul of discretion, but he had a soft spot for Demetria and Nikos could just see her badgering him to confirm her suspicions. Silently he cursed the other man—this was definitely one time when ignorance would have been the better option. Demetria just simply didn’t need this kind of heartache right now.

      Demetria clutched at his hand again.

      ‘You will do something, won’t you, Nik? Please—you must—you just must! I can’t talk to Stephanos. I just can’t. He’s trying to be nice to me—but it isn’t working. He’s so strange, so withdrawn. He can’t look me in the eye. It’s that woman’s fault! She’s got him totally in her clutches! She’s one of those whores that use rich

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