Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed

‘They’re forgeries.’

‘You know perfectly well they’re not. You’re up to your pretty neck in all this.’

‘I’m not up to my neck in anything.’ Elena wanted to scream.

‘You are. But there is a way for you to save yourself. And your father. And that is what I mean about you posing a dilemma for me.’

‘Go on.’

‘The lack of evidence to support my innocence is a setback for me.’

‘That’s because it doesn’t exist.’

‘If I’m such a master forger, don’t you think I would fake it?’ Gabriele demanded. ‘Your father is a meticulous record-keeper. It’s out there somewhere and I will find it … Or I could be persuaded to forget the whole thing. With the right incentive I could also be persuaded to destroy the evidence I copied last night rather than pass it on.’

‘What incentive are you talking about?’ she asked, her anger leaching out to be replaced with wariness.

A smile curved his handsome face. ‘That, you will find, is the crucial question. To secure a healthy future for your father and the rest of your family you will have to do one very simple thing—you’ll have to marry me.’

Wedlocked!

Conveniently wedded, passionately bedded!

Whether there’s a debt to be paid, a will to be obeyed or a business to be saved …

She’s got no choice but to say, ‘I do!’

But these billionaire bridegrooms have got another think coming if they think marriage will be easy …

Soon their convenient brides become the object of an inconvenient desire!

Find out what happens after the vows in

Untouched Until Marriage by Chantelle Shaw

The Billionaire’s Defiant Acquisition by Sharon Kendrick

One Night to Wedding Vows by Kim Lawrence

Expecting a Royal Scandal by Caitlin Crews

Look out for more Wedlocked! stories coming soon!

Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed

Michelle Smart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading (and writing) them ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire with her husband and two young Smarties.

This book is for Renata—

thanks for feeding my coffee addiction! xxx

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Wedlocked!

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Endpage

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE SCREAM PIERCED through the silence of the Nutmeg Island chapel.

Gabriele Mantegna, having just climbed up the stairs from the basement, came to an abrupt halt.

Where the hell had that come from?

He switched off his torch, plunging the chapel into complete darkness, and listened hard.

Had that been a woman’s scream? Surely not? Tonight, only the armed security crew inhabited the island.

Closing the basement door carefully, he walked to the one small window of the chapel not made of stained glass. It was too dark to see anything but after a moment a faint light appeared in the distance. It came from the Ricci house where at that moment an armed gang were helping themselves to all the priceless works of art and antiquities.

The island’s security crew were blind to the gang, their monitors remotely tampered with and feeding them falsehoods.

Gabriele checked his watch and grimaced. He’d been on the island ten minutes longer than planned. Every extra minute increased his chances of getting caught. To reach the beach on the south side of the island, from where he would swim to safety, was a further ten-minute walk.

But he hadn’t imagined the scream. He couldn’t in good conscience make his escape without checking it out.

Swearing under his breath, Gabriele pushed open the heavy chapel door and stepped out into the warm Caribbean air. The next time Ignazio Ricci decided on a spot of peace and contemplation, he would find the code for the chapel alarm scrambled.

For a building designed for peaceable contemplation and worship, the Ricci chapel had been desecrated by Ignazio’s real purpose.

It had all been there, directly beneath the chapel altar, in a basement stuffed with files dating back decades. A secret trail of blood money, the underbelly of the Ricci empire, hidden from the outside world. In the short time Gabriele had been in the basement he’d uncovered enough evidence of illegal dealings to have Ignazio spend the rest of his life in prison. He, Gabriele Mantegna, would personally hand the copied incriminating documents to the FBI. He would be there every day of the trial, seating himself so that Ignazio, the man who’d killed his father, would not be able to avoid seeing him.

When the judge’s sentence was pronounced Ignazio would know that it was he who had sent him down.

But everything wasn’t sunshine yet. The most important evidence for Gabriele, the documents that would have cleared his own name and exonerated his father once and for all, had not been found.