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‘Ahoered by that description because it was such an old-fashioned ter even remotely old-fashioned about Nik and his brand of contemporary cool
‘A good ho that Cristo, who had always had a decent home, could not comprehend the draw of such a talent in a woman ‘But my trust in her was misplaced and obviously I don’t want her back’
‘Are you absolutely certain of that?’ Cristo pressed
‘Neyes,’ Nik confirht not be divorced as yet but he had already moved on After all, Betsy had always been an eccentric choice of bride for a Greek billionaire but she had appeared during a troubled period in his life and she belonged to that phase,future he now envisaged In the space of the six e broke down, Nik had changed and he was very proud of that change He had shed his dysfunctional past, travelled froe than a ju, farhe intended to do noas repeat past mistakes And Betsy had been a serious mistake
No e in the coant conference room that a sudden noise would have seen her plastered to the ceiling
Her nervous tension was understandable After all, it had been sixwhich her already broken heart had been repeatedly stamped on and then what little remained torn to pieces He had refused to see her or make any explanation for his extraordinary behaviour In the space of aa happilyfor her first baby to a betrayed, bitterly hurt and confused wife
She had thrown Nik out but he had essentially abandoned her After his heartless deception, the force of his counter-attack had allance He had reacted as if three years of e, and what she had honestly assu to him Too late had it occurred to her that she had married a man who had never said he loved her, who had said in fact that he didn’t believe in love and who at all times and on all occasions had made his business affairs, rather than her, the top priority in his life
So, after that shattering betrayal of trust and his very final rejection, it was hardly a surprise that she was finally hitting back And she knew this course of action would take his feelings towards her fro her And she didn’t care; no, she definitely didn’t care what Nikolos Christakis thought of her any e the degradingly low value he had set on her and their ed in was a rather pathetic atte back to punish him for the heartbreak he had callously inflicted
Revenge It was not a pretty or fe abusiness shark like Nik Christakis would expect from his once submissive and soon-to-be ex-wife He hadn’t cared about her but he did care about his precious oal in Nik’s life than the ruthless pursuit of profit and the clever conservation of that vast store of personal wealth Betsy knew that if she could significantly dent Nik in the wallet department, if in no other way, she would finally draw blood After all, it had taken her outrageous clai he possessed to persuade Nik into an actual face-to-face ain Self-evidently e had ever mattered
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside and Betsy stiffened The door handle ht noise but the door stayed shut and she froze, her heart leaping into her mouth
‘Let us do the talking,’ her legal representative, Stewart Annersley, reminded her afresh
He ue in such company but she already knew that, could barely credit that she had spent three entire years in Nik’s world of rarefied wealth and yet contrived to reullible What did that say about her? Was she stupid? A poor reader of people and their ht when Nik had taken Giz had been her only coy-orientatedthe animal back Why?
Betsy believed it was because Nik was the ultimate control freak Evidently, as his stayed his, unless it was a discarded wife His o after the house that he had never liked but that she loved Why? Certainly he owned it and he had paid for the restoration, yet he had only bought the property to please her Or had he? Had he si investment? More and more Betsy doubted the assumptions she had once made about what motivated Nik
Without warning, the door sprang open and framed Nik’s very tall, well-built body Her heart hah it had stopped beating altogether because for a long timeless moment she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even blink He radiated raw sexual charisma
His extraordinarily light eyes glittered like glealy noticeable eyes and shockingly astute A thousand memories threatened to consume her—from the recollection of their disastrous first date to their idyllic honeye of her life once reality had set in—and she fought theain, she sith inner veheain
She lifted her chin, squared her stiff shoulders and stared back at hi him out because she could not face direct eye contact Yet in the back of her ony by his presence, wondering how this had happened to them, how the man she had once adored could have beco? What had she done to make him treat
her with such hostility and unkindness?
And even while paranoia and self-pity threatened to overwhelerous instant, it was Nik’s voice she heard inside her head ‘Stop with the persecution coa’s your fault You’re not being punished for some sin in this world or the next The bad stuff is simply what life throws at you’
Nik scanned Betsy with compulsive intensity Had she shrunk? She had never been very big in either height or size—indeed she barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet Surrounded by her legal posse she was utterly overshadowed She had definitely lost weight He wondered if she was eating properly, an old protective instinct kicking in, instantly staned to the back of his mind as inappropriate It was none of his business any more, equally none of his business that her lawyer, Annersley, was leaning far too close to her, appreciative eyes pinned to Betsy’s delicate profile as if she were a prize up for grabs And of course, endoith even a tithe of what Nik orth, Betsy would be verymale to snatch up in the future