The Marriage Betrayal (20 page)

For the greater part of the week, Sander was based in France and he ran the family company and his own business interests from a distance. The board of directors had recognised his genius in the changes he had made in how the business operated and had infuriated his competitive father by giving Sander a rousing vote of confidence in reward. Sander and Tally both enjoyed the more relaxed pace of life in France and often had his friends to stay at the weekend. Tally
enjoyed being
a hostess and was now a good deal less intimidated by the beautiful girls who threw themselves at Sander’s head every chance they got.

After all, Tally knew her husband much better than she had known him when they first married. She had learned that he was not a fan of women who chased him and disliked such bold approaches. He also had no love for clubs and noisy parties and much preferred social occasions attended only by close friends.

He would be wild to take her to bed when he got home that night, Tally savoured with hot cheeks and a sliding sensation of anticipation between her thighs. Her husband was highly sexed and she was still shaken by the hot rush of excitement that just a look or a touch from Sander could awaken in her.

Two hours later, Sander strode into the house and flung down his raincoat. Coming home to Tally was always an occasion and his gaze centred on her small, curvy figure standing beside the tall glittering Christmas tree. The house was a festive wonderland of Christmas ornamentation and, as the son of parents who had only ever celebrated the season in the most low-key and tasteful manner, Sander was impressed by his wife’s wonderful homemaking skills.

Her green eyes were bright with welcome and tenderness and he headed straight for her and scooped her up against him to kiss her with passionate appreciation. Her heart racing, Tally kissed Sander back with unconcealed enthusiasm.

‘How much time have we got before dinner?’ he breathed raggedly against her reddened lips.

Angling the swell of her stomach away from him, Tally shimmied her hip in wanton invitation against his lean powerful frame. ‘Enough time,’ she assured him
shamelessly, for she had planned it that way, aware that Sander would only really relax after they had made love again.

Meeting green eyes dancing with merriment and mischief, Sander laughed with unashamed masculine appreciation. He was truly happy to be home again as he walked her down to the bedroom they shared. Clothes were shed without ceremony and the kisses grew hotter than hot very quickly. Their impatience to reacquaint their bodies and sate the craving for satisfaction that tormented them both when they were parted for a few days lent an added edge of excitement. In the aftermath, her heart slowly returning to a less accelerated beat, Tally feasted her eyes on her husband’s lean, dark devastating features and whispered, ‘I missed you.’

Sander dropped another kiss on her soft full mouth and luxuriated in her embrace. ‘Once the baby’s born you’ll be able to come with me,
pedhi mou
.’

Tally winced at that forecast. ‘Babies like routine. I doubt if our baby will travel well.’

‘My son will,’ Sander forecast with perceptible pride. ‘To be a Volakis is to be a good traveller by air or by sea.’

Tally giggled. ‘Is that so?’

‘Of course it is. My son will be clever and he will naturally want to please his father.’

Tally half sat up and gazed lovingly down at the father of her child before saying with her usual common sense, ‘You’re always disagreeing with yours.’

‘But I will be a more caring parent and my son and I will have a closer relationship. I was always extra to requirements in my own family,’ Sander told her with a dismissive shrug that did not quite conceal his regret
that it should have been that way.

‘You know …’ Tally trailed gentle appreciative fingers across one stunning masculine cheekbone ‘… you
are
my world.’

Sander caught her hand in his and kissed her fingertips. ‘And you are at the very heart of mine,
kardoula mou
. I will always be grateful to your father for ensuring that I married you … what a treasure I might have missed out of my own ignorance and immaturity!’

And Tally recognised then that all his anger on that score was really laid to rest and their relationship had turned full circle. The warmth of his acceptance and his recognition of their increasingly close ties filled her to overflowing with happiness and contentment. In spite of all her careful planning dinner was very, very late
that night …

The Volakis Vow

A marriage made of secrets …
An enthralling two-part story by bestselling author,
Lynne Graham

This month:
THE MARRIAGE BETRAYAL

Tally Spencer, an ordinary girl with no experience of relationships … Sander Volakis, an impossibly rich and handsome Greek entrepreneur. Their worlds collide in an explosion of attraction and passion. Sander’s expecting to love her and leave her, but for Tally this is love at first sight. Both are about to find that it’s not easy to walk away … because Tally is expecting Sander’s baby and he is being blackmailed into making her his wife!

Next month, look out for:
BRIDE FOR REAL

Just when they thought their hasty marriage was finished, Tally and Sander are drawn back together and the passion between them is just as strong … But Sander has hidden reasons for wanting his wife in his bed again, and Tally also has a terrible secret … and neither are prepared for what this tempestuous reunion will bring …

Available in July and August—
can you wait to find out what happens?
Here’s a delicious taste of what you can expect …

B
RILLIANT
dark eyes grim, Sander studied the photo of his wife, looking small and sinuously sexy in a scarlet evening gown—and wrapped in another man’s arms.

He was disturbed to appreciate that he was in shock. The white heat of the rage that followed made him lightheaded and scoured him inside like a cleansing flame, leaving him feeling curiously hollow. Robert Miller, well, that wasn’t a surprise, was it? Sander had noted at the Westgrave Manor party two years earlier that Miller had wanted Tally the minute he’d laid eyes on her. Just as Sander had, once. But in spite of his simmering fury, Sander pushed the newspaper away with a careless hand. He glanced at his watching father to say lightly like a practised card player hiding his hand,
‘So?’

‘When will you be fully free of her?’ Petros Volakis demanded sourly, as if an estranged wife, whose new single life was being fully documented by the media, was an embarrassment to the family name.

‘I’m free now,’ Sander pointed out with a shrug, for, although divorce proceedings still had a way to go, an official separation was already in place.

As his attention roamed involuntarily back to the newspaper lying close by, he questioned the strength of his reaction to seeing Tally with someone else. They were getting a divorce. It should be no surprise that she was back on the social circuit. But, like a man forced to stand still while hot pitch was slowly dripped onto his skin, Sander was in torment. Why? Prior to their break-up Tally had brandished her indifference to Sander like a banner and he had assumed that no man could breach her barriers. The idea that another man might have succeeded where he had failed outraged and challenged him.

‘I don’t see you featuring in the gossip columns the way you did before you married,’ the older man remarked with more insight than Sander usually ascribed to him.

‘I’ve grown up,’ Sander countered drily. ‘I’m also more discreet.’

‘
She
was a mistake but we’ll say no more about it,’ Petros commented, noting the hardening of his son’s stubborn jaw line with a wary eye.

His lean, darkly handsome face uninformative, Sander
had
nothing to say, at least nothing worth saying. He marvelled that his parents, who had not even offered him sympathy on the death of his firstborn son, could think that any aspect of his marriage could be their business. But then, relations had long been chilly between Sander and his parents. His elder brother, Titos, the family favourite, had died in a tragic accident and, although it was only thanks to Sander that Volakis Shipping had since recovered from his brother’s disastrous management, Sander was still being made to feel a very poor second best in the son stakes. And now, all of a sudden, he was disturbingly conscious that his meteoric triumphs in business were in stark contrast to a frankly abysmal rating in his private life.

Tally, however, had moved on from their marriage at startling speed and was evidently enjoying considerable success: new business, new home,
new man
. That knowledge infuriated Sander, who remembered a much more innocent Tally, a glowing girl who had once been too excited to breathe when he kissed her. He could not stand to think of her in bed with Robert Miller and the awareness shocked him because he had never seen himself as a possessive man …

Don’t forget to come back
at the beginning of next month
to find out what happens to Tally and Sander!

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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First published in Great Britain 2011
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Lynne Graham 2011

ISBN: 978-1-408-92581-2