by Lynne Graham
Sybil looked pained by that question. ‘Merry, she’s got nobody else!’ she proclaimed, sharply defensive in both speech and manner. ‘Of course, that means I’m landing you with looking after things here...will you be able to manage the centre? Nicky is free to take over for you from next week. I’ve already spoken to her about it. Between minding Elyssa and running your own business, you’re not able to drop everything for me right now.’
‘But I would’ve managed,’ Merry assured the older woman, resisting the urge to protest her aunt’s decision to call on the help of an old friend, rather than her niece. Seeing the lines of tension and anxiety already indenting Sybil’s face, Merry decided to keep what had happened with Angel to herself. Right now, her aunt had enough on her plate and didn’t need any additional stress from Merry’s corner.
That evening, once Elyssa was bathed and tucked into her cot, Merry opened a bottle of wine. Sybil had already departed for the first flight she had been able to book and Merry was feeling more than a little lonely. She lifted her laptop and put Angel’s name into a search engine. It was something she had never allowed herself to do before, deeming any such information-gathering online to be unhealthy and potentially obsessional. Now drinking her wine, she didn’t care any more because her spirits were low and in need of distraction.
A cascade of photos lined up and in a driven mood of defiance she clicked on them one after another. Unsurprisingly, Angel looked shockingly good in pictures. Her lip curled and she refilled her glass, sipping it while she browsed, only to freeze when she saw the most recent photo of Angel with the same blonde he had brought to lunch with his father the day Merry had told him that she was pregnant. That photo had been taken only the night before at some charitable benefit: Angel, the ultimate in the socialite stakes in a designer dinner jacket, smooth and sleek and gorgeous, and his blonde companion, Roula Paulides, ravishing in a tight glittering dress that exposed an astonishing amount of her chest.
She was Greek too, a woman Angel would presumably have much more in common with. Merry fiercely battled the urge to do an online search on Roula as well. What was she? A stalker?
She finished her glass of wine and grabbed the bottle up in a defiant move to fill the glass again. Well, she was glad she had looked, wasn’t she? The very night before he proposed marriage to Merry, Angel had been in another woman’s company and had probably spent the night in her bed. Even worse the sexy blonde was clearly an unusual woman, being one who was an enduring interest in Angel’s life and not one of the more normal options, who swanned briefly on scene and then was never seen again with him.
Merry fought the turbulent swell of emotion tightening her chest, denying that it hurt, denying that it bothered her in the slightest to discover that Angel was still seeing that same blonde all these many months later. But denial didn’t work in the mood she was in as she sat sipping her wine and staring into the middle distance, angry bitterness threatening to consume her.
How dared he propose to her only hours after being in another woman’s company? How dared he condemn her for not taking him seriously? And how dared he come on to her as he had out on the terrace before he’d left? Didn’t he have any morals at all? Any conscience? And how could she even begin to be jealous over such a brazen, incurable playboy?
And yet she was jealous, Merry acknowledged wretchedly, stupidly, pointlessly jealous of a thoroughly fickle, unreliable man. Rage flared inside her afresh as she recalled that careless suggestion that they marry. Oh, he had played that marriage proposal down, all right, shoving it on the table without ceremony or even a hint of romance. Was it any wonder that she had not taken that suggestion seriously?
In a sudden movement Merry flew out of her seat and stalked out to the kitchen to lift the business card Angel had left with her. She was texting him before she had even thought through what she wanted to say...
Do you realise that if you married me you would have to give up other women?
* * *
Angel studied the screen of his phone in disbelief. He was dining with his brother Vitale and the sudden text from an unfamiliar number that belonged to Merry took him aback. He breathed in deep, his wide, sensual mouth compressing with exasperation.
Are you finally taking me seriously? If I married you there would be NO OTHER WOMEN.
Merry had texted him in shouty capitals.
‘Problems?’ Vitale hazarded.
Angel shook his dark head and grinned while wondering if Merry was drunk. He just could not imagine her being that blunt otherwise. Merry of all women drunk-dialling him, Merry who was always so careful, so restrained. A sudden and quite shocking degree of wondering satisfaction gripped Angel, washing away his edgy tension, his conviction that he had made a fatal misstep with her and a hash of their meeting.
And no other men for you either.
He pointed this out with pleasure in his reply.
That wasn’t a problem for Merry, who was stunned that he was replying to her so quickly. In truth, she had never ever wanted anyone as much as she wanted Angel Valtinos. All thoughts of kindly and dependable Fergus flew from her mind. She didn’t like the fact and certainly wasn’t proud of it. Indeed, she wouldn’t have admitted it even if Angel slow-roasted her over an open fire but it was, indisputably, the secret reality she lived with.
‘Who are you texting?’ his brother demanded.
‘My daughter’s mother.’ Angel shot his sibling a triumphant glance. ‘I believe that you will be standing up at my wedding for me as soon as I can get it arranged.’
Vitale frowned. ‘I thought you crashed and burned?’
‘Obviously not,’ Angel savoured, still texting, keener yet to get a clear response.
Exclusivity approved. Are you agreeing to marry me?
* * *
Merry froze, suddenly shocked back to real life and questioning what she was doing. What was she doing? Raging, burning jealousy had almost eaten her alive when she saw that blonde with him again.
We’d have to talk about that.
I’m a doer, not a talker. You have to give me a chance.
But he’d had his chance with her and wrecked it, Merry reminded herself feverishly. He didn’t do feelings or proper relationships outside his own family circle. Yet there was something curiously and temptingly seductive about proud, arrogant Angel asking her to give him another chance.
She decided to give him a warning.
One LAST chance.
* * *
YES! WE HAVE A DEAL!
Angel texted back with amusement and an intense sense of achievement.
He had won. He had gained his daughter, the precious chance to bring Elyssa into his life instead of losing her. In addition, he would be gaining a wife, a very unusual wife, who didn’t want his money. Another man would have celebrated that reality but, when it came to women, Angel was always suspicious, always looking out for hidden motives and secret objectives. Women were complicated, which was why he never got involved and never dipped below the shallow surface with his lovers...and Merry was infinitely more complicated than the kind of women he was familiar with.
Could such a marriage work?
Only time would tell, he reflected with uncharacteristic gravity. No other women, he pondered abstractedly. Well, he hadn’t been prepared for that demand, he acknowledged ruefully, having proposed marriage while intending the union as more of a convenient parental partnership than anything more personal. After all, he knew several couples who contrived to lead separate lives below the same roof while remaining safely married. They stayed together for the sake of their children or to protect their wealth from the damage of divorce, but nothing more emotional was involved.
In reality, Angel had never seen anything positive about the marital state. The official Valtinos outlook on marriage was that it was generally disastrous and extremely expensive. His own mother’s infidelity had ensured that his parents had parted by the time he was four years old. His grandparents had enjoyed a
n equally calamitous union while shunning divorce in favour of living in separate wings of the same house. Nor was Angel’s attitude softened by the number of cheating spouses he had met over the years. In his early twenties, Angel had automatically assumed that he would never marry.
But, self-evidently, Merry had a very different take on marriage and parenthood, a much more conventional take than a cynical and distrustful Valtinos. Here she was demanding fidelity upfront as though it was the very bedrock of stability. And maybe it was, Angel conceded dimly, reflecting on the constant turmoil caused by his mother’s rampant promiscuity. He thought equally hard about the little scene of apparent domestic contentment he had glimpsed at his cousin’s house, where a husband rushed into his home to greet a wife and children whom he obviously valued and missed. That glimpse had provided Angel with a disturbing vision of another world that had never been visible to him before, a much more personalised and intimate version of marriage.
And Merry, it seemed, had chosen to view his suggestion of marriage as being personal, very personal, rather than practical as he had envisioned. Beneath his brother’s exasperated gaze, Angel lounged back in his dining chair, his meal untouched, and for the first time in his life smiled with slashing brilliance at the prospect of acquiring a wife and a wedding ring...
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU SHOULD’VE WARNED Angelina,’ Charles Russell censured his son while they waited at the church. ‘Your mother isn’t ready to be a grandmother.’
‘Tough,’ Angel dismissed with sardonic bite. ‘I’m thirty-three, not a teenager. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.’
Always more sympathetic to other people’s vulnerabilities, Charles sighed. ‘She can’t help being vain. She is what she is. By not telling her in advance, you’re risking her causing a scene.’
On her way to the church that same morning, Merry was lost in the weird daze that had engulfed her from the moment she had agreed by text to marry Angel. She was stunned by what she had done in the hold of more wine and jealousy than sense but, in the two weeks that had passed, any urge to renege on the deal Angel had named it had slowly faded away. She wasn’t willing to walk away from Angel Valtinos and face a court battle for custody of her daughter. She was also fully aware that he had blackmailed her into marriage and was quite unsurprised by his ruthlessness, having seen how he operated on the business front.
Angel would undoubtedly hurt her but when push came to shove she had decided that she would infinitely rather have him as a husband than not have him at all. He would be hers with a ring on his finger and she would have to settle for that level of commitment, was certainly not building any little fantasies in which Angel, the unfeeling, would start doing feelings. She was trying to be realistic, trying to be practical about their prospects and she would have been happier on her wedding day had she not somehow contrived to have a massively upsetting row with Sybil about her plans.
Quite how that dreadful schism had opened, Merry had no very clear idea. Her aunt had been understandably shocked and astonished when Merry had phoned her in Australia to announce that she was getting married. Sybil had urged her to wait until she got home and could discuss that major step with her. But Merry, fearful of losing her nerve to marry a man who did not love her, had refused to wait and Sybil had taken that refusal to wait for her counsel badly. The more Sybil had criticised Angel and his reputation as a womaniser, the stiffer and more stubborn Merry had become. She was very well acquainted with Angel’s flaws but had not enjoyed having them rammed down her throat in very blunt words by her protective aunt. It was all very well, she had realised, for her to criticise Angel, but inexplicably something else entirely for anyone else to do it.
And throughout the past tumultuous and busy two weeks, Angel had been terrific in trying to organise everything to ensure that Merry could cope with the gigantic life change he was inflicting on her. Unfortunately, it was also true that between their various commitments they had barely seen each other. Handing Tiger over to the new owner Sybil had approved had been upsetting because she had become very fond of the little dog and only hoped that his quirks would not irritate in his new home.
Angel had had so much business to take care of while Merry had been engaged in closing down her own business and packing. Even so, Angel had managed to meet with her twice in London to see Elyssa and in his unfamiliar restraint she had recognised the same desire not to rock the boat that beat like an unnerving storm warning through her every fibre. He had been very detached but playful and surprisingly hands-on with Elyssa. It was clear to her that Angel didn’t want to risk doing anything that could potentially disrupt their marital plans and deprive him of shared custody of their daughter.
Of course it would take time for Angel to adapt to the idea of marriage and a family of his own and Merry appreciated that reality. He wasn’t going to be perfect from the word go, but the imperfect that warned her that he was trying hard was enough to satisfy her...admittedly somewhat low...expectations. She couldn’t set the bar too high for him at the start, she told herself urgently. She had to compromise and concentrate on what was truly important.
And what could be more important than Elyssa and seizing the opportunity to provide her daughter with a father? Merry knew what it was like to live with a yawning space in her paternal background. She had never known her father and, unpleasant though it was to acknowledge, her father hadn’t cared enough to seek her out to get to know her. But Angel was making that effort, right down to having interviewed nannies with Merry to find the one he thought would be most suitable. Entirely raised by nannies before boarding school, Angel had contrived to ask questions that wouldn’t even have occurred to Merry and she had been impressed by his concern on their daughter’s behalf and his determination to choose the most caring candidate.
So what if his input on the actual wedding and their future relationship had been virtually non-existent? He had hired a wedding organiser to take care of the arrangements and hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest about the details that had unexpectedly consumed Merry. Was that just Angel being a man or a dangerous sign that he couldn’t care less about the woman he was about to marry? Merry stifled a shiver, rammed down the fear that had flared and contemplated her manicured fingernails with rampant nervous tension. She had made her choice and she had to live with it when the alternative was so much worse and so much emptier. Surely it was better to give marriage a chance?
It had been embarrassing to tell Fergus that she was marrying Angel but he had taken the news in good part, possibly having already worked out that she was still far from indifferent to her daughter’s father.
The first shock of Merry’s wedding day was the unexpected sight of Sybil waiting on the church steps, a tall, slender figure attired in a very elegant blue dress and brimmed hat. Eyes wide with astonishment, Merry emerged from the limousine that had ferried her to the church from the hotel where she had stayed the night before and exclaimed in shaken disbelief, ‘Sybil?’
‘Obviously I couldn’t miss your big day, darling. I got back in the early hours,’ Sybil breathed with a revealing shimmer in her eyes as she reached for Merry’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry about the things I said. I overstepped, interfered—’
‘No, I was too touchy!’ Merry slotted in, stretching up on tiptoe to press a forgiving kiss to the older woman’s cheek. ‘You were shocked, of course you were.’
‘Yes, especially as you’re contriving to do what I never managed...you’re getting married,’ Sybil murmured fondly. ‘And you didn’t do too badly at all picking that dress without my advice. It’s a stunner.’
Her heartache subsiding in the balm of her aunt’s reassuring presence, Merry grinned. ‘Your voice was in my head when I was choosing. Tailored, structured,’ she teased, stepping into the church porch. ‘Where’s Angel’s father? He offered to walk me down the aisle, which I thought was very kind of him.’
‘Yes, quite the charmer, that man,’ Sybil pronounced a shade ta
rtly, evidently having already met Charles Russell. ‘But I told him he could sit back down because I’m here now and I’ll do the long walk.’
‘I think you’d rather take a long walk off a plank,’ Merry warned the older woman gently.
Sybil squeezed the hand she was gripping and smiled warmly down at the young woman who had been more her daughter than her niece, only to stiffen nervously at the prospect of the confession that she knew she had to make some time soon. Natalie had asked her to tell Merry the truth and Sybil was now duty-bound to reveal that family secret. Sadly, telling that same truth had shattered her relationship with Natalie when Natalie was eighteen years old and she could only hope that it would not have the same devastating effect on her bond with Merry and her child.
Gloriously ignorant of that approaching emotional storm, Merry smoothed down her dress, which effortlessly delineated the high curve of her breasts and her neat waist before falling softly to her feet, lending her a shapely silhouette. Straightening her slight shoulders, she lifted her head high, her short flirty veil dancing round her flushed face, accentuating the light blue of her eyes.
Even before she went down the aisle, she heard Elyssa chuckling. Her daughter was in the care of her new nanny, a lovely down-to-earth young woman from Yorkshire called Sally, who had impressed both Merry and Angel with her genuine warmth and interest in children. Merry’s eyes skimmed from her daughter’s curly head and waving arms as she danced on Sally’s knee and settled on Angel, poised at the altar with an equally tall dark male, Vitale, whose resemblance to Angel echoed his obvious family relationship to his brother. But Angel had the edge in Merry’s biased opinion, the lean, beautiful precision of his bronzed features highlighting the shimmering brilliance of his dark eyes and his undeniable hold on her attention.
Her breath caught in her dry throat and butterflies ran amok in her tummy, her chest stretched so tightly that her lungs felt compressed. Her hand slid off Sybil’s arm, suddenly nerveless as she reached the altar to be greeted by the Greek Orthodox priest. Angel gripped her cold fingers, startling her, and she glanced up at him, noticing the tension stamped in his strong cheekbones and the compressed line of his wide, sensual mouth. Yes, getting wed had to be a sheer endurance test for a wayward playboy like Angel Valtinos, Merry reflected with rueful amusement, but it was an unfortunate thought because she started wondering then whether he would find the tedious domestic aspects of family life and the unchanging nature of a wife a trial and a bore. The service marched on regardless of her teeming anxiety. The vows were exchanged, an ornately plaited gold wedding ring that she savoured for its distinctiveness and his selection of it slid onto her finger and then a matching one onto his.
