MISERY AND GUILT kept Merry awake for half the night. She had threatened Angel just as he had once threatened her and now it lay like a big rock of shame on her conscience because she had witnessed the depth of his attachment to Elyssa, had watched it develop, had even noticed how surprised Angel was at the amount of enjoyment he received from being a parent. He did not love his wife but he definitely did love his daughter.
All her emotions in free fall after the sensitive family issues that had been explored at Sybil’s house, she had been in no fit state to deal with Angel. She had drawn up battle lines for a war she didn’t actually want to wage, she acknowledged wretchedly. A divorce or separation didn’t have to be bitter and nasty and she hadn’t the smallest desire for them to fight like cat and dog over their daughter. Angel was a good father, a very good father and she would never try to deprive him of contact with his child. Just because she couldn’t trust him with the Roulas of the world didn’t mean she was blind to his skills as a parent or that she wasn’t aware that Elyssa benefitted as much as Angel did from their relationship. She wasn’t that selfish, that prejudiced against him, was she?
Anguish screamed through her as she sniffed and blew her nose over her breakfast in the dining room. She was a garish match for her elegantly furnished surroundings, clad as she was in comfy old pyjamas and a silky, boldly patterned kimono robe that had seen better days. She had left her fancy new wardrobe behind on Palos as a statement of rejection that she wanted Angel to notice. She had wanted him to appreciate that she didn’t need him or his money or those stupid designer clothes, even if that was a lie.
Her real problem, however, was that pain and hurt magnified everything and distorted logic. She had told Angel that she was leaving him because pride had demanded she act as though she were strong and decisive rather than betray the reality that she was broken up and confused and horribly hurt.
The thwack-thwack of a helicopter coming into land made her head ache even more and she gulped down more tea, desperate to soothe her ragged nerves. She heard the slam of the front door and she stiffened, her head jerking up as the dining-room door opened without warning and framed Angel’s tall, powerful form. She could not have been more appalled had he surprised her naked because she knew she looked like hell. Her eyes and nose were red, her hair was tangled.
‘Will you come into the drawing room?’ Angel asked grimly. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
‘I’m not dressed,’ she protested stiltedly, her head lowering to hide her face as she stumbled upright, desperate to make a quick escape from his astute gaze.
‘You’ll do fine,’ Angel told her callously, dark eyes cold and treacherous as black ice.
‘I can’t see anyone looking like this,’ Merry argued vehemently, striving to leave the room and flee upstairs by sidestepping him, but she found him as immoveable in the doorway as a rock.
‘You’ll be in very good company. I swear she’s cried all the way from Greece,’ Angel informed her incomprehensibly, gripping her elbow with a firm hand and practically thrusting her into the room next door.
Merry’s feet froze to the floor when she saw the woman standing by the window. It was Roula, looking something less than her usually sophisticated and stylish self. Her ashen complexion only emphasised her swollen eyes and pink nose and she was convulsively shredding a tissue between her restive fingers.
‘I’m so...so sorry!’ she gasped, facing Merry. ‘I lied to you.’
Angel shot something at the other woman in irate Greek and she groaned and snapped something back, and then the door closed behind Merry and when she turned her head again, Angel was gone, leaving them alone.
‘You lied to me?’ Merry prompted in astonishment.
‘I was trying to frighten you off. I thought if you left him he might finally turn to me,’ Roula framed shakily, her voice hoarse with embarrassment and misery.
‘Oh,’ Merry mumbled rather blankly. ‘You’re not his mistress, then?’
‘No, that was nonsense,’ Roula framed hoarsely. ‘We’ve never had sex either. Angel’s never been interested in me that way, but because we were such good friends I thought if you broke up with him he would confide in me and maybe start seeing me in a different light. But it’s not going to happen. He said the idea of me and him ever being intimate was disgusting, incestuous. I wish I’d worked out that that’s how he saw me years ago. I’d have saved myself a lot of heartache.’
Merry experienced a very strong desire to pat the blonde’s shoulder to comfort her and had to fight the weird prompting off. She could see that the other woman felt humiliated and guilty and very sad. ‘Did Angel force you to come here and tell me this?’
‘Well, it wasn’t my idea, but he said I owed him and he was right. From the moment he told me that he was marrying you I was so jealous of you!’ Roula confessed with a sudden wrenching sob, clamping her hand to her mouth and getting herself back under control again before continuing, ‘Why you? I asked myself. Why not me? You worked for him and he never ever sleeps with his employees and yet he slept with you...and you’ve got a great figure and you’re very pretty but you’re not exactly supermodel material...and then you totally freak him out by having a baby and yet somehow he’s now crazy about the baby as well!’
‘Have you always been in love with him?’ Merry mumbled uncomfortably, grasping that, by Roula’s reckoning, Angel deciding to marry her qualified as an unbelievable and quite undeserved miracle.
‘When I was a teenager it was just a crush. He was my best friend. I knew all the rotten things Angelina has ever done to him and it broke my heart. I learned how to handle her to keep her out of his hair, to try and help him cope with her. That’s why she likes me, that’s why she decided that he should marry me if he ever married anyone. I’ve had other relationships, of course,’ Roula told her wryly. ‘But every time one broke down, I told myself it would’ve been different with Angel. He was my ideal, my Mr Right...at least he was until he dragged me onto that plane and shouted at me half the night!’
‘His temper’s rough,’ Merry conceded while frantically trying to work out how she had so badly misjudged the man whom she had married. It was obvious that Roula was now telling her the truth. Bitter jealousy had driven the blonde into an attempt to destroy Angel’s marriage.
‘And he’s like the elephant who never forgets when you cross him. He’ll never forgive me for causing all this trouble,’ Roula muttered with weary regret.
‘He’ll get over it,’ Molly said woodenly, wondering if he would ever forgive her either.
‘I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry,’ the blonde framed guiltily. ‘I know that’s not much consolation in the circumstances but I deeply regret lying to you. I didn’t think it through. I told myself you’d probably got deliberately pregnant and planned the whole thing to trap him. I could see he was happy on your wedding day but I wouldn’t admit that to myself and if anyone merits being happy, it’s Angel.’
‘I think we can forget about this now,’ Merry commented uncomfortably. ‘I can’t put my hand on my heart and say that I forgive you, but I am grateful you explained why you did it and I do understand.’
‘Fair enough,’ Roula sighed as she opened the door to leave.
Merry tensed when she saw Angel poised across the hall, straightening to his full predatory height, shrewd dark eyes scanning her like a radiation counter.
‘I told the truth,’ Roula told him flatly. ‘Can I leave now?’
‘You’re satisfied?’ Angel demanded of Merry.
She nodded in embarrassed confirmation.
‘I’ll have you returned to the airport,’ Angel informed Roula curtly.
Merry took advantage of his momentary inattention to head for the stairs at a very fast rate of knots. She wanted to splash her face, clean her teeth, brush her hair and ditch the pyjamas with the pink bunny rabbits on them. Then she would work out what she had to say to him to redress the damage she had done with her lack of faith. Possibly a spot of grovelling would be appropriate, obviously a heartfelt apology...
She was caught unprepared and halfway into a pair of jeans when Angel strode into the bedroom. He thrust the door shut, leant his long, lean frame sinuously back against it and studied her with brooding dark eyes.
‘I’m sorry... I’m really sorry,’ she muttered, yanking up the jeans. ‘But she was very convincing and I don’t think she’s a bad person. I think she was just jealous and she got a bit carried away.’
‘I don’t give a damn about Roula or why she did what she did,’ Angel declared impatiently. ‘I care that even after being married to me for weeks you were still willing to threaten me with the loss of my daughter.’
Merry lost colour, her eyes guiltily lowering from the hard challenge of his. ‘That was wrong,’ she acknowledged ruefully. ‘But you used the same threat to persuade me into marrying you...or have you forgotten that?’
‘My intentions were good. I wanted to persuade you to give us a chance to be a proper family. But your intentions were bad and destructive,’ Angel countered without hesitation. ‘You wanted to use Elyssa like a weapon to punish me. That would have damaged her as much as me.’
‘No, I honestly wasn’t thinking like that,’ Merry argued, turning her back to him to flip off the despised pyjama top and reaching for a tee shirt, having decided for the sake of speed and dignity to forgo donning a bra. ‘Even when I was mad at you I accepted that you are a great father, but I assumed you would make any divorce a bitter, nasty battle.’
‘What made you assume that?’ Angel asked drily. ‘I didn’t even ask you to sign a pre-nuptial agreement before the wedding. That omission sent the family lawyers into a tailspin but it was a deliberate move on my part. It was an act of faith formed on my foolish assumption that you would respect our marriage as much as I did.’
Merry reddened with more guilt. He really knew what buttons to push, she reflected wretchedly. It hadn’t occurred to her that he hadn’t asked her to sign a pre-nup before the ceremony, but in retrospect she could see that that had been a glaring omission, indeed a very positive statement, in a marriage involving a very wealthy man and a reasonably poor woman. His continuing coldness was beginning to unnerve her. He had never used that tone with her before. He sounded detached and negative and he was still icily angry. She glanced up, scanning his lean, strong features for another, more encouraging reading of his mood, and instead noted the forbidding line of his wide, sensual mouth, the harsh angle of his firm jaw and the level darkness of his accusing gaze.
‘But the instant we hit the first rough patch in our marriage you were ready to throw it all away,’ Angel condemned.
‘A long-term mistress is more than a rough patch,’ Merry protested helplessly. ‘I believed Roula because you introduced me to her as a friend that you trusted.’
‘She’s the sister I never had,’ Angel asserted with sardonic bite. ‘The thought of anything of a sexual nature between us is...repellent.’
And the last piece of the puzzle fell into place for Merry, who, while believing Roula, had not quite been able to grasp why Angel had never been tempted into having a more intimate relationship with her. After all, Roula was a beauty and had to share a lot with him. But if he saw the blonde in the same light as a sibling, his indifference to her as a woman was instantly understandable and highly unlikely to ever change.
‘I’ve seen a lot of divorces,’ Angel admitted. ‘In my own family, amongst friends. Nobody comes out unscathed but the children suffer the most. I don’t want my daughter to ever suffer that damage, but neither do I want a wife who runs like a rabbit at the first sign of trouble.’
‘I did not run like a rabbit!’ Merry argued, hot-faced. ‘Maybe you’re thinking of what you did after I told you I was pregnant!’
‘I took responsibility. I ensured your financial needs were covered.’
‘But you weren’t there when I was throwing up every morning and trying to drag myself into work to keep my job.’
‘You didn’t need to keep on working. Your allowance would have covered your living costs.’ Angel hesitated before asking with a frown, ‘Were you sick that often?’
‘Every day for about four months, often more than once a day. And then one evening I started bleeding and I assumed I was having a miscarriage. After that, I resigned from my job and went home to stay with Sybil.’
Angel levered his long, lean frame lithely off the door, moving with that innate grace of his towards her, his lean, dark face troubled. ‘You almost lost Elyssa?’
‘Well, I thought I was losing her and I panicked and went to the hospital, but it was just one of those pregnancy mishaps that seem more serious than they are. It was very frightening, though, and very upsetting.’
‘And I wasn’t there when I should’ve been,’ Angel registered for himself, studying her grimly. ‘Can’t turn the clock back and be there for you either, so that can’t be changed. Do you think you will always hold my absence during those months against me?’
‘I try not to dwell on it. If you didn’t want a relationship with me at the time there would’ve been no point in you coming back into my life,’ she conceded simply. ‘It would’ve been too awkward for both of us.’
Angel winced. ‘I didn’t even realise that I did want to be in a relationship with you back then. I would have to admit that I was completely blind to my own hang-ups. Growing up I only saw shallow, chaotic relationships, which is why when I was an adult I avoided anything that could have been construed as a relationship. I had sex and that was that, end of...only then I met you and my blueprint for a relaxed and unemotional life went up in flames.’
‘How could you have an unemotional life when you’re so full of emotion?’ Merry asked him incredulously.
‘I keep that side of me under control...at least I did until you and Elyssa sneaked through my defences,’ Angel reasoned wryly. ‘You know, you may not have been a happy camper while you were pregnant but I wasn’t any happier. You shook me up. You made me want more and that scared me because I had no experience of a normal relationship.’
‘You don’t do relationships,’ she reminded him drily.
‘What have I been doing with you for the past month?’ Angel shot back at her. ‘There’s nothing casual about our connection. Do you really think it’s normal for me to be content to spend so much time with one woman?’
‘I didn’t ask you to do that.’
‘I’m a selfish bastard. I did it only because I wanted to.’
‘For your daughter’s sake, you worked at being married to me,’ Merry paraphrased with pained dismissiveness.
Angel shook his arrogant dark head in wonderment. ‘I’ve got to admit that right now I’m having to work at being married to you because you are so stubbornly determined to think the worst of me.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘You don’t trust me. You’re always waiting for the roof to fall in! I used to think that was cute but now I’m beginning to wonder if you’ll ever recognise that, even though I’ve made a hell of a lot of mistakes along the way, I do love you,’ he completed almost defiantly.
Merry stared at him in astonishment. ‘You don’t.’
‘Even when you’re wearing the bunny pyjamas you were wearing the night I got you pregnant,’ Angel assured her with confidence. ‘I didn’t recognise it as love until after we were married. Even though I’m always worrying about you, I’m incredibly happy being with you. I wake up in the morning and everything feels good because you’re there beside me. When you’re not there, everything feels off and I feel weirdly lonely...’
Merry’s lower lip parted company with her upper and she stared at him in wide-eyed consternation.
‘And the most extraordinary thing of all is that I thought you loved me too until you walked out and accused me of cheating on you,’ Angel admitted ruefully. ‘I thought that for the first time in my life I was loved for who I was, not for what I can do or buy or provide. You know I’m flawed and you accept it. You know I’m still finding my way in this family set-up.’
‘You’re not the only one. Yesterday I discovered that Sybil is not my aunt but my grandmother,’ Merry told him in a sudden surge. ‘That’s another reason why I was so upset and over the top with you yesterday. I was already all shaken up. My mother was adopted by Sybil’s parents and only learned the truth when she was eighteen. Oh, never mind, I’ll explain it all to you later, but finding out that Sybil and Natalie had been keeping all that from me all my life made me feel deceived...and you’re right, I do love you,’ she completed almost apologetically. ‘I have almost from the start. Don’t know why, don’t know how, just got attached regardless of common sense.’
Angel rested his hands down on her taut shoulders. ‘We had an electric connection from the first day. Somehow, we match. I just wish I hadn’t wasted so much time staying away from you when I wanted to be with you. I was existing in a sort of fog of denial that everything had changed and that I wanted the sort of relationship that I had never trusted or experienced with a woman.’
‘And I let you down,’ she whispered guiltily. ‘I did think the worst at the first sign of trouble. I wasn’t strong and sensible the way I should have been.’
‘It’s sort of comforting that your common sense leaves you when you’re upset. When I arrived and saw you’d been crying, obviously upset, it gave me hope that you did care.’
‘I’ll always care,’ she muttered softly, turning her cheek into the caress of his long fingers.
‘I’ve never trusted love. I know my father cares about me but my mother lost interest the minute I grew beyond the cute baby stage,’ he confided. ‘What you said about Sybil and your mother? Take it back to basics, agape mou. You may not have known the whole story but you were always loved. That’s a blessing. It’s much harder to love without that experience and the confidence it gives you.’
Merry stretched up to him and buried her face in his shoulder, drinking in the musky familiar aroma of his skin like a restorative drug. He caught her chin in his fingers and tipped up her mouth to taste her with hungry urgency.
‘You taste so good,’ he ground out, walking her back towards the bed with single-minded intent. ‘Tell me you love me again... I like hearing it.’
‘How did you guess how I felt?’ Merry pressed. ‘I thought I was hiding it.’
‘You put up with all my unreasonable demands and still smiled at me. I didn’t deserve it so there had to be some other reason why you were being so tolerant and sometimes I couldn’t help testing you to see if you’d crack.’
‘I don’t crack. I’m loyal and loving...as long as you don’t take on a mistress.’
‘Where would I get the energy?’ Angel growled, his attention elsewhere as he slid his hand below the tee shirt to mould it to a plump breast with satisfaction, and then wrenched her out of its concealment with unashamed impatience. ‘Thee mou, I want you so much it hurts... I thought I was losing you.’
‘And then I disappointed you.’
‘You’re not supposed to walk away, you’re supposed to stand and fight for me,’ Angel told her. ‘I fought for you.’
‘I was hiding behind my pride.’
‘I don’t have any where you’re concerned and I have even fewer scruples. I was willing to drug and kidnap you to get you back to Greece. You don’t want to know the things that ran through my mind when I thought I was losing you,’ he assured her. ‘A large helping of crazy, if I’m honest.’
‘That’s because you love me,’ Merry told him happily. ‘You’re allowed to think crazy things if you want to fight to keep me...’
And their clothes fell away in a messy heap as Angel moved to make her his again and satisfy the last lurking stab of insecurity inside him. Merry was his again and all was right with his world, well, almost all. He shifted lithely against her, holding her close.
‘When you feel up to the challenge, we’ll have another baby and I will share the whole experience with you,’ Angel promised, jolting her out of her drowsy sensual daydream.
‘Another...baby?’ Merry gasped in disbelief. ‘You’ve got to be kidding! Elyssa’s only seven months old!’
‘You could consider it...eventually, hopefully,’ Angel qualified. ‘Although I’ll settle for Elyssa if you don’t want another child. It’s not a deal breaker.’
‘Are you sure the threat of that extra responsibility won’t make you run for the hills again?’ Merry asked snidely.
‘No, set me the challenge of getting you pregnant and I assure you that I will happily meet every demand, no matter how strenuous or time consuming it becomes.’ Dark golden eyes alive with tender amusement, Angel gazed down with a wide, relaxed smile. ‘In fact I find the concept quite exciting.’
Merry punched a bare brown shoulder in reproach. ‘Anything to do with sex excites you!’
Angel looked reflective and a sudden wicked grin lit his darkly handsome features. ‘I’m sure if we had about six children, six very noisy and lively children, I could persuade my mother to find her own accommodation. You see, expansion could be a complete game changer in the happy-family stakes...’
‘I do hope that was a joke,’ Merry sighed, warm and contented and so happy she felt floaty. He loved her and it shone out of him. How had she not seen that? How had she tormented herself for so long when what she desperately wanted was right there in front of her, waiting to be claimed?
And now Angel was hers, finally all hers, and equally suddenly she was discovering that she was feeling much more tolerant and forgiving of other people’s frailties. Her mother was trying to show her that she cared and perhaps it was past time she made more of an effort in that quarter. And then there was Roula, unhappy and humiliated—possibly she could afford to be more forgiving there as well. Happiness could spread happiness, she decided cheerfully, running a seeking hand down over a long, sleek male flank, keen to increase his happiness factor too...
* * *
‘Well, I have to confess that I never saw this coming,’ Natalie admitted, studying her mother, Sybil, and Angel’s father, Charles, as they stood across the room graciously receiving the guests at the wedding reception being held at Angel and Merry’s home on the island of Palos. ‘I thought it would fizzle out long before they got this far.’
‘He’s daft about her and she has made him wait six years to put that ring on her finger,’ Merry reminded the small blonde woman by her side. ‘I think she’s just finally ready to settle down.’
‘Well, she took her time about it,’ Natalie pronounced wryly. ‘Angel’s mother isn’t here, is she?’
‘Hardly, considering that she was Charles’ first wife,’ Merry remarked.
‘Not much chance of her settling down.’
‘No,’ Merry agreed quietly, reflecting that they saw remarkably little of Angelina these days. Angelina had bought a Manhattan penthouse where she now spent most of her time. Occasional scandalous headlines and gossip pieces floated back to Angel and Merry, but Angel was no longer forced to be involved in his mother’s life and now found it easier to remain detached.
Elyssa rushed up, an adorable vision in a pink flower girl’s dress that already had a stain on it. ‘Keep this for me,’ she urged, stuffing the little wicker basket she had carried down the aisle into her mother’s hand. ‘Cos and I are going to play hide and seek.’
Merry bent down. ‘No, you’re not. This is a very special party for grown-ups and children aren’t allowed to run about.’
Her son, Cosmas, four years old to his big sister’s almost six years, rushed up, wrenching impatiently at the sash tied round his waist. ‘Take this off.’
‘Not until Sybil says you can,’ Merry warned. ‘There are still photos to be taken.’
‘Where’s the rest of the horde?’ Natalie enquired curiously.
Their two-year-old twins, Nilo and Leksi, were chasing Tiger through the hall. Merry hurtled in that direction to interrupt the chase before it got out of hand. Tiger was a mere shadow of the fat and inactive little dog he had once been. Living in a household with five children had slimmed him down. His first rehoming hadn’t worked out and when he had been returned to Sybil soon afterwards, after shaming himself and stealing food, Merry had scooped him up for a rapturous reunion and brought him back to Greece. As she hovered Angel appeared, a baby clutched securely below one arm, and spoke sternly to his youngest sons. Atlanta beamed gummily across the hall at her mother and opened her arms.
‘I don’t know where you get the energy,’ Natalie confessed, watching Merry reclaim her eight-month-old daughter. ‘Either of you. You produce like rabbits. Please tell me the family’s complete now.’
Colour warmed Merry’s cheeks because their sixth child was already on the way, even if they had not yet announced the fact, and Angel grinned down at his tongue-tied wife with wicked amusement. ‘We haven’t decided yet,’ he said lightly.
Atlanta tugged on her mother’s long hair as Merry walked out onto the terrace to take a break from the festivities. It had taken weeks of careful planning to organise the wedding and accommodation for all the guests. She had wanted everything to be perfect for Sybil and Charles, both of whom were frequent visitors to their home. After all the years of feeling short-changed in the family stakes, Merry had come full circle and now she was surrounded by a loving family.
She was even happier to have achieved a more normal relationship with her mother, who had returned to the UK and started up a very successful yoga studio. These days she regularly saw Natalie when she went over to London with Angel. Her mother had mellowed and Merry had put the past behind her in every way.
A year earlier she had acted as Roula’s matron of honour when the other woman had married the island doctor in a three-day-long bout of very Greek celebration. Roula was still a friend of the family, and sometimes Merry suspected that the trouble the other woman had caused with the mistress lie and the truths that had then come out had actually helped Roula to move on and meet someone capable of loving her back.
But then Merry was willing to admit that she had learned from the same experience as well. Discovering that she was married to a man who loved her so much that he was willing to do virtually anything it took to hang onto her and their marriage had banished her insecurity for ever. She liked being a mother and Angel revelled in being a father. The rapid expansion of their family had been exhausting but also uniquely satisfying.
Lean brown hands scooped the slumbering baby from Merry’s lap and passed her to Jill, Sally’s co-nanny, for attention. Angel then scooped his wife out of her chair and sank back down with her cradled in his arms.
‘You are very tired,’ he scolded. ‘We’ve talked about this. You agreed to take afternoon naps.’
‘After the meal,’ she murmured, small fingers flirting with his silk tie as she gazed up at him, loving and appreciating every line of his lean, startlingly handsome features and thinking back lazily to the poor beginning they had shared that had miraculously transformed over the years into a glorious partnership.
‘Thee mou,’ Angel intoned huskily. ‘Sometimes I look at the life you have created for all of us and I love you so much it hurts, agape mou. My wife, my family, is my anchor.’
Happy as a teenager in his public display of affection where once she would have wrenched herself free, Merry giggled. ‘You mean we drag you down?’
And Angel gave up the battle and kissed her, hungrily, deeply, tenderly while somewhere in the background his mother-in-law snorted and said in a pained voice, ‘You see...like rabbits.’
* * * * *
If you enjoyed THE SECRET VALTINOS BABY why not explore these other Lynne Graham stories?
HIS QUEEN BY DESERT DECREE
CLAIMED FOR THE LEONELLI LEGACY
SOLD FOR THE GREEK’S HEIR
Available now!
And look out for the rest of Lynne’s VOWS FOR BILLIONAIRES trilogy coming soon!
Keep reading for an excerpt from A BRIDE AT HIS BIDDING by Michelle Smart.
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