Mediterranean Millionaires. LYNNE GRAHAM
Читать онлайн книгу.
at her throat and ears. He was very proud of his wife. In two years of marriage she had overseen the restoration of both house and gardens, travelled all over the world with him and acquired the name of being a wonderfully laid-back hostess. She also wrote a regular gardening column in a Sunday newspaper. He was the envy of many men.
But the greatest gift that Gwenna had given him apart from herself and her love was the lively little bundle Angelo was cradling against his shoulder. She had been christened Alice Fiorella Massey Riccardi, a giant moniker for a tiny baby. Six months on, they called her Ella. Angelo had been totally unprepared for the instantaneous attachment he had experienced the first time his daughter was placed in his arms. Piglet trotting at his heels—for Piglet did not like large crowds—Angelo took Ella back to her nanny in the nursery and laid her down in her cot. It was time to go downstairs and escort Gwenna onto the floor in the ballroom for the first dance.
‘It’s been a long day. I can’t wait to have you all to myself, amata mia,’ Angelo confided as he closed his arms round her.
A delightful quiver of anticipation rippled through Gwenna’s slight frame. He was so demanding, she thought blissfully. She knew she was a very lucky woman. Whirled round the floor below the magnificent Venetian glass chandeliers, she nestled closer to her husband’s lean, powerful body. It was a wonderful evening.
After she had said goodbye to the last of their guests she shooed Piglet out of the dining room. ‘You’re getting fat,’ she scolded, lifting him away from the plate of cake he had discovered lying beneath a chair. The little animal was assuming an even more barrel-like shape.
She went upstairs and checked on Ella, beaming down at her darling rosy-cheeked daughter with her riot of black curls. She had to admit that her pregnancy had come as a surprise. In fact Angelo had been teasing her about her weight gain long before it had dawned on either of them that an impromptu bout of outdoor lovemaking during the previous summer had borne fruit. But they had found Ella so much fun that they were planning to have another baby quite soon so that their daughter would have a playmate.
Gwenna felt that life had been exceedingly kind to her. She was busy and fulfilled and not even her problem father had managed to put a check on the great joy of her marriage. Admittedly, Donald Hamilton had proved to be an ongoing source of concern. His second marriage had broken up in a welter of acrimony. Forced to live in reduced circumstances and shunned by former friends, the older man had drowned his sorrows in alcohol. Gwenna had tried her best to help but to no avail. She had been very pleasantly surprised when Angelo had taken the trouble to intervene and succeeded where she had failed. Within weeks, Donald Hamilton had been attending regular AA meetings in clean, smart clothes, and last month he had started his new job: advising on how to detect fraud within Rialto.
‘He’ll have no access to money and he’ll be watched like a fox in a hen coop. His boss is an ex-policeman,’ Angelo had assured her when she’d voiced the fear that the temptation might prove too much for her parent. ‘I believe your father has already come up with some useful ideas.’
Angelo strolled up behind her as she removed her last earring. He scanned her dreamy blue eyes in the bedroom mirror. ‘What are you thinking about?’
She went pink, for she had been thinking how touched she had been that he had sorted out her father’s problems purely for her sake. That, in her opinion, was the definition of real lasting love.
‘You were chatting to Toby for ages this evening. Any old vibes for me to worry about?’ Angelo enquired, utterly despising himself for voicing that question but unable to silence it. He got on great with Toby James, but he could never quite forget that Toby had once been a threat to his peace of mind.
‘Angelo…we were talking about the drainage problem in the kitchen garden,’ she proffered gently.
She spun round and he linked his arms round her.
‘I’m much more exciting, bellezza mia,’ Angelo murmured silkily.
‘I know…’ Her breath tripped in her throat as he cupped her hips and lifted her against him in a shamelessly erotic move that literally melted her from outside in.
‘Drainage,’ Angelo repeated in a genuinely pained tone of disbelief.
His kiss was sweet, honeyed intoxication and wonderfully sensual.
‘I may not be creative in the garden—’
‘You’re awfully creative in other ways,’ Gwenna pointed out breathlessly.
His slashing smile was her reward. ‘Because I love you…in bed, out of bed, any place, any time—’
Gwenna let her fingers delve adoringly into his luxuriant black hair. She was filled with a glorious swell of happiness and contentment. ‘I love you too.’
PROLOGUE
ANDREAS NICOLAIDIS kept a powerful grip on the steering wheel as his Ferrari Maranello threatened to skid on the icy, slippery surface of the country lane.
The rural landscape of fields and trees was swathed in a heavy mantle of unblemished white snow. There was no other traffic. On a day when the police were advising people to stay at home and avoid the hazardous conditions, Andreas was relishing the challenge to his driving skills. Although he owned a legendary collection of luxury cars he rarely got the chance to drive himself anywhere. In addition, he might have no idea where he was but he was wholly unconcerned by that reality. He remained confident that he would at any moment strike a route that would intersect with the motorway, which would enable his swift return to London and what he saw as civilisation.
But then, Andreas had always cherished exceptionally high expectations of life. He led an exceedingly smooth and well-organised existence. To date every annoyance and discomfort that had afflicted him had been easily dispelled by a large injection of cash. And money was anything but a problem.
It was true that the Nicolaidis family fortunes, originally founded in shipping, had been suffering from falling profits by the time Andreas had become a teenager. Even so, his conservative relatives had been aghast when he’d refused to follow in his father’s and his grandfather’s footsteps and had chosen instead to become a financier. In the years that had followed, however, their murmurs of disquiet had swelled to an awed chorus of appreciation as Andreas had soared to meteoric heights of success. Now often asked to advise governments on investment, Andreas was, at the age of thirty-four, not only worshipped like a golden idol by his family, but also staggeringly wealthy and a committed workaholic.
On a more personal front, no woman had held his interest longer than three months and many struggled to reach even that milestone. His powerful libido and emotions were safely in the control of his lethally cold and clever intellect. His father, however, had been on the brink of marrying his fourth wife. His parent’s unhappy habit of falling in love with ever more unsuitable women had exasperated Andreas. He did not suffer from the same propensity. Indeed the media had on more than one occasion called Andreas heartless for his brutally cool dealings with the opposite sex. Proud of his rational and self-disciplined mind, Andreas had once made a shortlist of the ten essential qualifications that would have to be met before he would even consider a woman as a potential life partner. No woman had ever met his criteria…no woman had even come close.
Hope curled her frozen hands into the sleeves of her grey raincoat and stamped feet that were already numb.
She was hopelessly lost and there was nobody to ask for the directions that she needed to find the nearest main road. Pessimism was, however, foreign to Hope’s nature. Long years of leading a very restricted life had taught her that a negative outlook lowered her spirits and brought no benefits. She was a great believer in looking on the bright side. So, although she was lost, Hope was convinced that a car containing a charitable driver would soon appear and help her to rediscover her bearings. It didn’t matter that the