Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled with Rubies. Robyn Donald

want to do it in church.’

      ‘Whatever.’ Her mother’s dismissive wave of her hand indicated that she considered the venue to be irrelevant. ‘The contrast between you and your sister is so enormous that he’s going to be kicking himself.’

      Angie rolled her eyes. It was a good job that given the choice between beauty and brains she would have chosen brains. Otherwise her mother’s comments would have made her too self-conscious to leave the house. But then, she’d had years to get used to it.

      Nikos prowled the length of the tiny room and back again, ignoring the nervous glances of his bodyguard, who had already made the unfortunate faux pas of congratulating his employer on his wedding day. Reminded of something that he was trying hard to forget, Nikos had exploded in a tirade of Greek that had left his staff in no doubt at all as to his attitude to the institution of matrimony.

      Aware that they would now all be wondering whether he’d made some poor unfortunate girl pregnant and been trapped into a hasty wedding, Nikos ground his teeth and paced the length of the room once more, battling an almost overwhelming urge to put his fist through the wall. He eyed the cheap chairs and plastic flowers with incredulous disbelief and no small degree of self-loathing. What the hell was he doing here? This was just the sort of situation that he’d successfully avoided all his life.

      He’d decided many years before that marriage wasn’t going to be for him, that commitment to one woman was best avoided. And now here he was, not only forced to marry, but forced to marry someone who would have been as far from his ideal choice of woman as it was possible to be.

      The only glimmer of light on the horizon was that she obviously had no idea what she was letting herself in for. She’d clearly expected to be able to grab an indecent amount of money out of their wedding and he almost smiled as he contemplated the depth of her disappointment when she realised that the pre-nuptial agreement had been constructed in such a way as to ensure that she received not a single penny on their eventual divorce. And she obviously had some twisted belief that, by forcing him into a commitment that he’d previously avoided, she was going to punish him. Her naïvety was almost amusing. The truth was that he was so angry with the entire Littlewood family that he was actually beginning to relish the prospect of turning the tables on her.

      If she was looking for a fight, then she’d come to the right place, he mused grimly, reflecting on the fact that Dr Angelina Littlewood was about to face a vastly superior adversary.

      In the circumstances he found her continued defence of her sister distinctly unpalatable and, although he’d always considered himself to be an emotionally restrained person, he could no longer think about Tiffany without feeling his temper rise to dangerous levels. Having met the mother, it was obvious that she was a drunken version of her younger daughter and, as for the elder—

      The door opened and Angie Littlewood stumbled through the door, wobbly on unfamiliar heels and clutching a small bunch of roses in front of her. Behind her, Gaynor Littlewood hovered, wearing a completely ridiculous hat, but Nikos didn’t spare her a glance. His gaze was fixed on his bride-to-be.

      He’d braced himself for the navy trouser suit and the usual haphazard hair. What he hadn’t expected was a stylish dress in a soft fabric that skimmed her figure and hinted at feminine curves concealed beneath. His gaze lifted and lingered on her full lips, now accentuated by a subtle sheen of gloss and then settled on her hair, which had been swept on top of her head in an elegant knot.

      She cast a quick glance around the room and walked over to him with exaggerated care, clearly trying not to trip on her shoes. ‘You chose a small register office wedged between a public library and a supermarket in a small provincial town. One has to wonder why.’ Clutching a small bouquet of roses, her blue eyes were cool as she looked up at him.

      ‘Why not?’ Nikos examined the freckles on her nose and wondered whether she had them anywhere else on her body. Suddenly in the grip of a vicious attack of lust, he almost laughed at himself. Why, when faced with a woman designed to drive carnal thoughts from a man’s head, was he struggling with a massive erection? All right, so she had possibilities but he’d known that almost from the start. Some time between the removal of her glasses and the escape of her hair, he’d realised that Angie Littlewood had certain attractions—attractions of which she, herself, appeared to be unaware. But he knew better than anyone that sex was about so much more than the physical. He liked his women to be sophisticated, his equal sexually. He already had evidence that Angie’s definition of ‘erotic’ involved all the passion of a business presentation. He wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that she was a virgin. Realising that she was waiting for an answer to her question about the venue, he shrugged. ‘Why not here?’

      ‘It just isn’t the sort of place I’d associate with a man like you.’

      ‘Precisely.’ He didn’t even try to keep the impatience out of his tone. She might be an academic, but surely she wasn’t that naïve? ‘I, for one, am keen to avoid any sort of publicity. If the media discovered I was getting married, we would have been mobbed. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that any more than I do.’

      ‘Oh, yes, sorry. I’d forgotten how obsessed you are with your image.’ She glanced at the bodyguard. ‘You have no family here to celebrate with you?’

      Ignoring her dig about image and determined to ignore the insidious throb in his loins, Nikos narrowed his eyes. ‘What is there to celebrate?’

      ‘You mean that you’re ashamed of me.’

      ‘I mean that I want the Brandizi diamond returned to my family and this appears to be the only way to secure that objective.’

      He saw the faint flush on her cheeks and wondered for a moment whether he was seeing guilt. Then he reminded himself that she was a Littlewood and was betraying all the greed and money-grabbing tendencies that had characterised her sister’s behaviour.

      The registrar cleared her throat and Nikos watched as something akin to panic flashed in Angie’s eyes.

      ‘Last-minute nerves, agape mou?’ He leaned forward, his eyes gentle as he lifted a hand and brushed her cheek in what appeared to those watching to be an affectionate gesture. ‘My dear, sweet Angelina.’ His lips brushed her skin and he lowered his voice, the rest of his words for her ears only. ‘Enjoy your last moments as a single, independent woman. You’re about to become my property.’