Bella Frances - Redeemed by Her Innocence

When a merciless billionaire meets a virgin beauty...

Can the beast be tamed?

Ruthless businessman Nikos Karellis wont risk his company to save Jacquelyn Joness struggling bridal boutique. But he will give her the best night of her life! Discovering that Jacquelyns as pure as the white wedding dresses she designs, Nikos is intrigued... But returning to Greece together leaves him emotionally exposed and warring with past guilt. Could untouched Jacquelyns sensual surrender be this dark-hearted Greeks redemption?

Indulge in this dramatic tale of seduction...

You want to know what its like to make love to me.

Jacquelyn would die rather than admit it, but silence was her confessor.

And for a reason I still cant quite put my finger on, I am just as curious to know what its like to make love to you.

Im trying to take that as a compliment, she said, rolling her head sensuously, as Nikoss grip loosened to a caress.

You should. Its been a very long time since I felt anything like this. A very long time. Maybe never...

He trailed a finger down her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted. She felt the finger land on the cushion of her lower lip. She would not give in so easily. She would not grab him the way she wanted to.

Unable to sit still without reading, Bella Frances first found romantic fiction at the age of twelve, in between deadly dull knitting patterns and recipes in the pages of her grandmothers magazines. An obsession was born! But it wasnt until one long, hot summer, after completing her first degree in English literature, that she fell upon the legends that are Harlequin books. She has occasionally lifted her head out of them since to do a range of jobs, including barmaid, financial adviser and teacher, as well as to practice (but never perfect) the art of motherhood to two (almost grown-up) cherubs.

Bella lives a very energetic life in the UK but tries desperately to travel for pleasure at least once a monthstrictly in the interests of research!

Catch up with her on her website at www.bellafrancesauthor.com.

Books by Bella Frances

Harlequin Presents

The Playboy of Argentina

The Consequence She Cannot Deny

The Tycoons Shock Heir

Claimed by a Billionaire

The Argentinians Virgin Conquest

The Italians Vengeful Seduction

Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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Bella Frances

Redeemed by Her Innocence

With grateful thanks to Joyce Young, By Storm, Glasgow and London for her insights into the world of wedding dress design.

For Graham Frize, redeeming innocence wherever he goes. Beautiful, sinful and wonderful friend.

Contents

N IKOS K ARELLIS WALKED straight into the bridal suite of Maybury Hall, Wedding Venue of the Year, and slung his suit carrier down on the four-poster bed. So this is romance, he thought, frowning at the frills and flowers and buckets of girly fizz. He lifted a bottle, checked the vintage and slipped it back into the watery ice. He was a long way off celebrating yet. Hed travelled through eight time zones and three continents, and he needed something a bit harder to take the edge off.

Finally he saw what he wanted, tucked underneath a gilt mirror featuring chuckling cherubsa tray with decanter, glasses and water jug. Perfect. He poured a generous measure, then he added a little more, skipped the water, and sank it, the burn and peaty fumes soothing as they slid down his throat.

Cheers, Martin, he thought, tipping his glass at the chandelier. At least his former brother-in-laws taste in whisky was better than his taste in dcor.

The bridal suite.

Of all the rooms in his flagship luxury hotel, Martin had chosen to put him up here. Maybe it was his idea of a joke, but it wasnt a very funny one. Pretty much nothing about being married to Maria made him laugh any more.

Nikos reached for the decanter, pausing in the act of pouring a second. The temptation was strong, but clear-headed was the only way to be tonight, because tonight was the beginning of the end, the face-to-face to get it all out in the open. Whatever it was that Martin thought had been hidden away in Marias legacy, this was the night when theyd sort it out, because it was drainingand not just financially.

Despite what Martins lawyers and the Inland Revenue seemed to think, there were no hidden assets, no secret stash of cash, no offshore investments. She had drunk them all, or snorted them all. And that was that. It would be a hard story to tell her doting brother, but Nikos was damned sure he wasnt going to leave anything out, because hed had enough.

The tit-for-tat legal wrangling had gone on for too long so hed done it the old-fashioned way; lifted the phone, and asked for a meeting. When Martin suggested this black-tie event in one of his chain of luxury hotels, Nikos didnt hesitate. It was that or wait another six weeks until theyd even be on the same continent.

He could barely wait six more minutes now that he finally had the end in sight. Five years since Marias deathbut it was only his wedding ring hed tossed into the cool, blue Aegean; the pain and the memories had been much harder to shift.

Too late to stop himself, he touched his ring finger. Empty space, smooth skin. Even though House, his high-end chain of department stores, was now in the Forbes 100, with turnover almost hitting the four billion mark, that feeling of bare skin felt better than anything. It was the feeling of freedom. More than that, it was the cast-iron knowledge that he was on his own now. On his own, forging his path, no wife hanging off his arm, or around his neck, no damage to clean up afterjust these final few crumbs and then he really was home free.

He filled up a fresh glass with water and walked to the window. The estate was impressive, immense, expanding off into horizons of oak trees and lawns, and willow-draped lakes. He could just see the roof of the lodge house hed passed and the huge iron gates at the end of the road, where a car had just pulled up. Something about it made him strain forward to see better...

But just then a knock sounded on the door, and he turned.

I heard youd arrived.

Martin Lopez stood in the door and for a second they looked at each other. The same dark hair, dark eyes, sallow skin and high cheekbones as Mariaa look that hed once found ravishing, irresistible, forging a love so strong hed moved from delinquent eighteen-year-old biker to husband, in three years.

Looking back, which he had done all too often in the ten years theyd been together, it had been a predictable car crash of wrong place, wrong time. The minute hed rescued her from the Bentley shed wrapped around a lamp post on the side of the Sydney highway, theyd been inseparablehe was tennis coach, swimming coach, personal trainer, anything she could do to keep him in her life, and, after where hed been, it had felt like arriving at the Promised Land.

Unfortunately some promises were very hard for Maria to keep.

Martin. Good to see you.

He walked towards him, stretching out a hand, reading in the light press of Martins palm and the shifting of his gaze that he was on edge.

Nikos. Im glad you came. Its been a long time.