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Bride Behind The Billion-Dollar Veil
Clare Connelly
How to redeem the world’s richest playboy? Marry a Cinderella! Fantastically wealthy Thanos Stathakis almost has it all. He requires just one last company to complete his empire. But to acquire it he must counter his scandalous reputation—with a wife! His executive assistant Alice is the perfect choice. Oh-so-respectable and needing financial support for her family, he persuades her their vows are purely for show. Until he lifts Alice’s veil and their intense, electrifying kiss complicates everything…
How to redeem the world’s richest playboy?
Marry him!
Extremely wealthy Thanos almost has it all. One last company will complete his empire. To acquire it he must repair his scandalous reputation—with a wife! And his respectable assistant, Alice, is perfect for the role.
Thanos is the last man Alice should say “I do” to—she knows men like him cause only pain. But her family is in dire need of financial support so she agrees, knowing their vows are purely for appearances. Until Thanos lifts her veil and their intense, electrifying kiss complicates everything…
CLARE CONNELLY was raised in small-town Australia among a family of avid readers. She spent much of her childhood up a tree, Mills & Boon book in hand. Clare is married to her own real-life hero, and they live in a bungalow near the sea with their two children. She is frequently found staring into space—a surefire sign that she’s in the world of her characters. She has a penchant for French food and ice-cold champagne, and Mills & Boon novels continue to be her favourite ever books. Writing for Modern is a long-held dream. Clare can be contacted via clareconnelly.com (http://www.clareconnelly.com) or at her Facebook page.
Also by Clare Connelly (#u3c23ab5a-8c36-5327-aba5-6904e53462d6)
Bought for the Billionaire’s Revenge
Innocent in the Billionaire’s Bed
Her Wedding Night Surrender
Bound by the Billionaire’s Vows
Spaniard’s Baby of Revenge
Shock Heir for the King
Christmas Seductions miniseries
Bound by Their Christmas Baby
The Season to Sin
Crazy Rich Greek Weddings miniseries
The Greek’s Billion-Dollar Baby
Mills & Boon DARE
Guilty as Sin miniseries
Her Guilty Secret
His Innocent Seduction
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Bride Behind the Billion-Dollar Veil
Clare Connelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08842-8
BRIDE BEHIND THE BILLION-DOLLAR VEIL
© 2019 Clare Connelly
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#u3c23ab5a-8c36-5327-aba5-6904e53462d6)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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For Penny Jordan,
whose beautiful, sensual, romantic Mills & Boon novels
have given me hours and hours of romance-reading
pleasure, not to mention a certainty that
dreams really can come true.
Contents
Cover (#u8fa90783-4bb9-5d70-8f0c-354addb579ef)
Back Cover Text (#u5be61919-3e38-523e-9065-f5eef2a6be9f)
About the Author (#u034640b5-bc2b-5892-bcf0-93233bac272c)
Booklist (#u027b4146-0f99-5aa9-97a9-eed9b024342f)
Title Page (#u8d4367b5-af4f-5dca-b176-cc105e346a1b)
Copyright (#u6c9dc103-2456-5e79-9256-935ca4e6d405)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u14b082cb-40a7-5ea9-8d67-97edd4132b55)
PROLOGUE (#u97541154-f5b4-50b2-aa1d-ab16f60a0666)
CHAPTER ONE (#u48681aab-9bd3-515f-beaa-50480ac11c2c)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9ac7c73b-78d2-5786-a96f-85d8ceb4c59f)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf6221036-0b41-5fc0-b1c9-2dfa599522f4)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u3c23ab5a-8c36-5327-aba5-6904e53462d6)
Twelve years ago
‘LISTEN TO ME.’
Thanos looked up at his brother, barely able to see him through the fog of rage and disbelief that shrouded his every thought and feeling.
‘We will get it back.’
Thanos gripped the pen in his hand, returning his attention to the imperious black line at the bottom of the contract. A contract for the sale of Petó, the company their grandfather, Nicholas Stathakis, had built from the ground up. The company Thanos had learned to operate at his grandfather’s knee. The company that meant everything to him.
‘No.’ He dropped the pen to the boardroom table, extending to his full six and a half feet, striding across the room with a ramrod-straight back.
He knew his half-brother was watching him, and he knew Leonidas was feeling the same sense of outrage and disbelief. Only Leonidas was somehow better at processing this. He was calm, outwardly, even as their world crumbled around them, whereas Thanos wanted to torch the building on his way out.
He braced his palms on the floor-to-ceiling glass, looking out on downtown Athens. All of this they had once commanded.
All of this, their father had destroyed.
‘We will get it back, Thanos,’ Leo repeated, with urgency. ‘But we must sell it for now.’
Nausea split Thanos’s side. Sell it? Sell the jewel in their grandfather’s business empire? Because their father had tied the company to the mafia?
Thanos ground his teeth together, locking his jaw intently. He wanted to say there was another way. He wanted to fix this. To make it better. And suddenly he was eight years old again, watching his mother walk away. He was eight years old and knowing himself to be the instrument of a family’s breakdown. He was eight years old and everything in this world was his fault. But this was so much worse.
Nicholas had trusted Thanos with Petó, and he’d been careless. He’d trusted Dion Stathakis—their father—when he should have seen what was happening right beneath his nose.
What could he do now?
‘I cannot bear to think of someone else running his business.’ Thanos’s voice cracked with the strength of his emotions.
‘Do you think I can?’ Leonidas growled, and Thanos turned to face his brother then, their eyes meeting with complete understanding. This situation was wrong. Wrong in every way.
Leonidas softened his expression a little. ‘But this is the best possibility we could have hoped for. Kosta Carinedes wants Petó. His plan to fold it into his own logistics empire are sound, so too the rebranding he envisages. Petó will live on, Thanos, and it will continue to prosper.’
Thanos’s stomach clenched. ‘But not by our hands.’
‘No.’ Leonidas’s eyes glittered in acknowledgement of that.
‘I will not live in a world where this company is not mine, Leonidas. One day, one way or another, Petó will be ours again.’
Leonidas nodded slowly but Thanos wasn’t satisfied. ‘Swear it to me, Leo. Swear to me now that we will right this wrong—and all our father’s wrongs—even if it takes us the rest of our lives.’
Leonidas expelled a soft, low breath. ‘I swear it. But you must sign the contract now.’
Thanos nodded, knowing his brother to be correct. Still, he glared at the paper as though it were a writhing tangle of snakes at his feet. He lifted the pen with difficulty and hovered it over the page, his perennial tan paled to straw in that moment.
He scrawled his name on the page and silently swore to himself, once more, that this wasn’t the end.
