The Husband Test. HELEN BIANCHINЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CONTENTS

      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 ONE

      KATRINA felt her breath hitch a little as her voice rose in disbelief. ‘You’re not serious?’

      It was a joke. A tasteless, sick joke. Except lawyers didn’t sink to this level of facetiousness during a professional consultation. ‘Dear God,’ she said irreverently. ‘You are serious.’

      The man seated behind the imposing mahogany desk shifted his shoulders, and eased into a well-rehearsed platitude. ‘Your late father expressed concern at the difficulties you might incur.’

      Difficulties didn’t even begin to describe the shenanigans her extended dysfunctional family were heaping on her head.

      Not that this was anything new. She had been the favoured one for as long as she could remember. Daddy’s golden girl. His only child. A constant, immovable thorn in the side of his second and third wives and their child apiece from previous marriages.

      No one could say her life hadn’t been interesting, Katrina reflected. Three paternal divorces, two scheming ex-wives, and two equally devious stepsiblings.

      During her formative years she’d been able to escape to boarding school. Except for holidays at home, most of which had been hell on wheels as she’d fought a battle in an ongoing war where reality had been a seething sea of emotional and mental one-upmanship beneath the façade of pleasant inter-family relationships.

      The time between each of her father’s divorces had proved to be the lull before the next storm, and instead of bowing her down it had merely strengthened her desire to be a worthy successor to his extensive business interests.

      Much to the delight of the man who’d sired her.

      Now, that same man was intent on reaching out a hand from the grave to resurrect a part of her life she fought on a daily basis to forget.

      Katrina cast the lawyer a penetrating look. ‘He can’t do this,’ she refuted firmly as she attempted to hide the faint tide of panic that was slowly invading her body.

      ‘Your father had your best interests at heart.’

      ‘Making the terms of his will conditional on me effecting a reconciliation with my ex-husband?’ she queried scathingly. It was ridiculous!

      ‘I understand a divorce has not been formalised.’

      Her level of desperation moved up a notch. She hadn’t got around to it and, as no papers had been served on her, neither had Nicos.

      ‘I have no intention of allowing Nicos Kasoulis back into my life.’

      Greek-born, Nicos had emigrated to Australia at a young age with his parents. As a young adult he’d gained various degrees, then had entered the hi-tech industry, inheriting his father’s extensive business interests when both parents died in an aircraft crash. Katrina had met him at a party, their instant attraction mutual, and they’d married three months later.

      ‘Kevin appointed Nicos Kasoulis an executor,’ the lawyer relayed. ‘Shortly before his death, your father also appointed him to the board of directors of Macbride.’

      Why hadn’t she been apprised of that? Dammit, she held a responsible position in the Macbride conglomerate. Choosing not to take her into his confidence was paternal manipulation at its worst.

      Her chin lifted fractionally. ‘I shall contest the will.’ Dammit, he couldn’t do this to her!

      ‘The conditions are iron-clad,’ the lawyer reiterated gently. ‘Each of your father’s ex-wives will receive a specified lump sum plus an annuity until such time as they remarry, sufficient to support a reasonable lifestyle in the principal residence they gained at the time of their divorce. There are a few bequests to charity, but the remainder of the estate passes in equal one-third shares to you and Nicos, with the remaining share being held in trust for your children. There is a stipulation,’ he continued, ‘making it conditional both you and Nicos Kasoulis refrain from filing for divorce, and reside in the same residence together for the minimum term of one year.’

      Had Nicos Kasoulis known of these conditions when he’d attended her father’s funeral less than a week ago?

      Without doubt, Katrina decided grimly, recalling how he’d stood like a dark angel on the fringes, watchful, his touch cool, almost impersonal, as he’d taken her hand in his and had brushed his lips to her cheek.

      He’d uttered a few words in condolence, politely declined to attend the wake held in Kevin Macbride’s home, and had walked to his car, slid in behind the wheel, and driven away.

      ‘And if I choose not to heed my late father’s request?’

      ‘Nicos Kasoulis retains control in the boardroom, and a financial interest in Macbride.’

      She didn’t believe him, couldn’t accept Kevin had gone to such lengths to satisfy a whim to have his daughter reconcile with a man he had considered more than her equal.

      ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Katrina refuted. She was the rightful heir to the Macbride business empire. Dammit, it wasn’t about money…nor bricks and mortar, stocks and bonds.

      It was what they represented. The sweat and toil of a young Irish lad from Tullamore who at the age of fifteen had worked his way to Australia to begin a new life in Sydney as a brickie’s labourer. At twenty-one he’d formed his own company and made his first million. At thirty he’d become a legend, and had been fêted as such. With the pick of Sydney’s society maidens to choose from, he’d acquired a wife, sired a babe, and had developed a roving eye. Something that had got him into trouble and out of marriage a few too many times. A lovable rogue, as Katrina’s mother had referred to Kevin Macbride on a good day.

      To Katrina he’d been a saint. A tall dark-haired man whose laugh had begun in his belly and had rolled out into the air as a full-blooded shout. Someone who’d swept her up into his arms, rubbed his sun-drenched cheek against her own fair