After Their Vows
Broken vows don’t necessarily mean a broken marriage… Angie de Calvhos meant every word of the vows she shared with husband Roque at the altar. Pity he didn’t return her sincerity… Expecting happy-ever-after, instead Angie found herself going through a mortifyingly public separation!Now, divorce papers in hand, Angie has finally built up the courage to put an end to her time as a de Calvhos wife once and for all. But she’s forgotten the magnetic pull that devilish Roque possesses. And that broken vows don’t necessarily mean a broken marriage…
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Praise for MIA’S SCANDAL by Michelle Reid
‘A Mills & Boon title that provides a perfect opportunity for escapism.’
—The Sun
‘Enter the betrayed wife, with her beautiful chin held high and her sensational green eyes turned to ice.“I have nothing to say to you, Roque.”’
He gave a wincingly good mimic of her cool boarding school accent, bringing an uncomfortable flush to Angie’s cheeks.
‘I was then treated to the fabulous supermodel walk through the apartment—the long, sexy glide and the sizzling fire hair—aimed to hook me into following you like a panting puppy dog—’
‘A puppy dog?’ She was glad to get her teeth into something. ‘You were never anyone’s panting puppy dog, Roque. You came into this world a fully-grown womanising wolf!’
About the Author
MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet, and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning, and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without, and she produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT do you want me to do about it?’
Seated behind his desk, engrossed in the business report spread open in front of him, Roque de Calvhos responded impassively, ‘You do nothing.’
Mark Lander continued to hover like a man in a quandary, frowning behind his spectacles because doing nothing was not an option his employer could afford to take.
‘She could make trouble,’ he dared to offer, all too aware that the younger man did not take kindly to interference into decisions he made about his private life.
Roque de Calvhos was a chip off the old block when it came to a cut-throat mentality. When Eduardo de Calvhos had become ill and died suddenly three years ago, no one had expected his notorious playboy son to calmly stride in here and start making his presence felt, with far-sweeping decisions most people had believed were a precursor to the quick demise of de Calvhos power.
They now knew better. What Roque had done with the huge network of diverse companies which made up the de Calvhos business empire had put his father’s colossal success in the shade. Now obsequious respect shadowed the thirty-two-year-old’s every elegant footstep. If the financial industry could give out such awards, Roque de Calvhos would have sprouted wings. He was also remarkably good-looking, insufferably laid-back, and so impossible to read that there were still some fools out there who dared to underestimate him—only to learn the hard way what a huge mistake they had made.
His estranged wife was not one of those people. ‘At the moment she is citing irreconcilable differences. Think about it, Roque,’ Mark advised. ‘Angie is basically letting you off the hook here.’
Giving up on the report, Roque sat back in his chair to look up at the older man. Eyes as black as the neatly groomed hair on his head revealed nothing as he studied the lawyer’s concerned face.
‘You are about to remind me that my wife signed no pre-nup,’ Roque predicted. ‘Take it from me, Mark, Angie is not greedy. I trust her not to attempt to skin me alive, okay?’
‘That depends on what you mean by skinning you alive,’ his lawyer responded dryly. ‘That she doesn’t want your money? Okay, I will agree with you that Angie does not want your money, or she would have been demanding a large cut of it long before now. I would, however, be willing to lay odds that she does not feel the same way about skinning you of your honour and pride. She wants this divorce, Roque.’ Mark stated it firmly. ‘If the only way she can get it is by playing dirty then you have to consider if you are going to like her citing adultery on your part to get what she wants. If she does decide to go down that route there is just no way we will be able to keep it out of the public arena, and you know as well as I do the old can of worms she will be opening if that happens.’
Roque set his teeth together in frustration behind the moulded shape of his lips because he knew that Mark was right. The Playboy and the Two Supermodels … headlines were bound to start up again. Last time, the slick, character-slaying stories had run for weeks, trawling out his cavalier playboy past and quoting phrases about leopards and spots.
He released a sigh, hating it that Mark was right.
Taking that sigh as an indication that he could go on, Mark Lander took in a deep breath and went for broke. ‘Angie has hard evidence that you slept with Nadia Sanchez. The stupid woman gave her the evidence herself because she wanted to break up your marriage.’
‘She succeeded,’ Roque confirmed flatly.
‘You were damn lucky back then that Angie decided to keep silent about the affair in an effort to save her own face.’
There was a lot more to Angie’s motivations than mere saving face, Roque mused, using the luxuriant swoop of his eyelashes to shade his eyes so that the lawyer could not read his thoughts. Angie was hurting. Angie was nursing the worst kind of broken heart a woman could nurse. Angie blamed him and hated him for causing it.
