In receipt of that confession, Belle unexpectedly looked surprisingly thoughtful and then she sighed in grudging surrender to the argument. ‘I think we’ve all been there at some stage,’ she confided with unexpected feeling. ‘When I thought Cristo was in love with you, I honestly thought I hated him because I was devastated and so unbelievably jealous.’
Betsy froze to the spot in disbelief and wondered if she had misheard the other woman. ‘You thought that Cristo could be in love with me? For goodness’ sake, when?’
‘After we got married I discovered that he carried a photo of you in his wallet,’ Belle admitted ruefully. ‘Before that find I had assumed that you were only friends—’
‘But we were only friends,’ Betsy retorted with uncomfortable stress, wondering just how much alcohol Belle had imbibed that evening. ‘There was never anything else, not even a minor flirtation between us—I swear it—’
Belle wrinkled her nose in embarrassed dismissal. ‘Of course I know that now but I didn’t know that back then and Cristo had quite a job convincing me because, let’s face it, you are beautiful and very feminine, Betsy, so obviously I could see your appeal. At the time I was so afraid that you were much more Cristo’s type than I could ever be—’
At that instant Belle’s rambling speech was interrupted by a sudden noise behind Betsy and a harsh bitten-off masculine exclamation. She spun in consternation, just in time to see Nik’s tall, broad-shouldered figure swinging round in the doorway to fire back out into the corridor.
‘Nik?’ she called after him anxiously while she wondered how long he had been standing there waiting for her to notice his presence. ‘Were you looking for me? Wait for me...’
‘Oh, hell!’ Belle gasped in undiluted horror. ‘Nik must’ve heard what I told you about Cristo...’
The two women raced out of the conservatory to return to the party and reached the hall just as Nik grabbed his brother Cristo by the shoulder and punched him in the face. A split second later Nik had Cristo physically pinned to a wall, black fury and outrage etched in every flushed line of his lean, rigid features. ‘My wife...you were in love with my wife?’ Nik was growling with enraged incredulity.
Betsy realised that Nik had indeed overheard Belle’s deeply damaging admission that she had once believed that Cristo was in love with Betsy and she gritted her teeth in frustration at the realisation, because it was not at all the sort of revelation that Nik was likely to take lying down or with a large forgiving pinch of salt. Nik was a proud and possessive man and even his close friendship with his brother would not excuse what Nik would regard as an unforgivable betrayal of trust. Even so, it was all a stupid storm in a teacup, Betsy thought in exasperation, reluctant to credit that Belle’s suspicions could ever have had any foundation in fact.
‘Calm down, Nik. Think this through,’ Cristo was urging with admirable cool for a male who had blood running from the corner of his mouth. ‘You’ve got this all wrong—’
‘You had a photo of Betsy in your wallet?’ Nik was roaring, apparently deaf to any plea for calm.
‘It’s not like it sounds,’ Cristo protested.
‘My own brother? I trusted you, totally trusted you around my wife and you deceived me!’ Nik growled as if Cristo hadn’t even spoken and with that embittered accusation he threw back his arm and hit Cristo again.
Cristo finally tore himself free of Nik’s punishing hold and shot a string of words at his brother in fast, fluent Italian.
‘For goodness’ sake, someone stop them!’ Betsy exclaimed in consternation as the two brothers began to exchange punches in earnest with both of them so well matched in powerful build and strength that there was no hope of a quick conclusion to the fight.
Belle darted across the hall to the main reception room, which still contained a handful of lingering guests, and called her brother-in-law Zarif out to join them.
Zarif appeared in the doorway. Tall and startlingly handsome with olive skin and very dark eyes, the young King of Vashir took in the situation at a glance and waded between his brothers, ducking a blow that would have sent him flying had he not been so agile. Mercifully that near miss of their sovereign was all it took to provoke Zarif’s four accompanying guards into plunging straight into the fight to forcibly separate the battling siblings. An exchange of furious Italian and Greek followed but Zarif flung open the door of Cristo’s study and said drily, ‘We will discuss this in a more private setting.’
Betsy dealt the younger man an appreciative appraisal, grateful for his intervention. While Zarif was technically merely a kid brother, he had been raised as an Arab prince in a royal palace and, having trained as a soldier and seen actual combat, he had a habit of command and a mature and level-headed presence far beyond his years.
‘Oh, my heaven, what have I done to this family?’ Belle was whispering, distraught, dashing her auburn hair off her brow in a feverish gesture. ‘I’ve caused so much trouble between the brothers. Cristo will never forgive me for opening my big mouth.’
‘No matter how he felt, Nik shouldn’t have just exploded like that and assumed the worst,’ Betsy breathed ruefully. ‘He should have talked it over with Cristo first.’
‘Nik would still have hit him,’ Belle opined without hesitation. ‘Nik’s very much the dark, jealous, passionate type.’
Somehow Betsy had never viewed her husband in that light before and her lashes fluttered in confusion.
‘And Cristo explained to me once that Nik’s not good with emotional things, which I suppose explains why you almost got all the way to the divorce court before it finally dawned on Nik that you’re still the most important person in his world.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Betsy muttered uncomfortably, wishing that she could crash into Cristo’s study to find out exactly what was happening between the three brothers. It was the very first time that she had seen Nik lose his temper and his self-control to that extent and she was still in shock, her legs feeling a little wobbly at having been witness to the kind of violence she abhorred, even more particularly when it broke out between members of the same family. That welter of exchanged blows had torn apart the brothers’ close relationship and she was distressed by that reality.
‘Nik’s absolutely crazy about you!’ Belle protested. ‘And Cristo says he always has been...from the first moment he saw you.’
A lump formed in Betsy’s throat. Was it possible that Nik truly cared about her? That he could have been as misled as she had been about her own feelings? After all, hadn’t she believed that she hated Nik for a while? Hadn’t that been her way of coping without him? Her way of getting by and surviving life without him?
‘Cristo is just going to kill me for this mess,’ Belle muttered guiltily, tears sparkling in her lovely eyes. ‘I don’t always think before I speak. Deep down inside me, I never forgot that time when I believed Cristo might care more for you than for me—’
‘I don’t believe that could ever have been the case,’ Betsy countered staunchly.
‘Maybe I wanted to test you, see how you reacted,’ Belle acknowledged shamefacedly.