by Lynne Graham
And then, jolting her out of the powerful spell that Angel cast, Charles Russell surged up to her to kiss her warmly on both cheeks, closely followed by Sybil, who strove to conceal her shotgun attitude to Angel with bright, determined positivity. Elyssa, seated in a nearby pew on Sally’s lap, held out her arms and wailed pathetically for her mother.
‘That little chancer knows how to pick her moment,’ Sybil remarked wryly as Merry bent to accept her daughter and hoisted her up, only to be intercepted by Angel, who snagged his daughter mid-manoeuvre, saying that the bride could scarcely cart a child down the aisle.
‘Says who?’ Merry teased, watching Elyssa pluck at his curls and his tie with nosy little hands, watching Angel suddenly slant a grin at his lack of control over the situation. Once again she found herself suppressing her surprise at his flexibility when at the mercy of a wilful baby.
Angel maintained a grip on his daughter for the handful of photos taken on the church steps. Merry watched paparazzi wield cameras behind a barrier warded by security guards, their interest visibly sharpened by her daughter’s first public appearance. Her eyes widened in dismay when she finally recognised how much her life and Elyssa’s were about to change. For years, Angel’s every move had been fodder for the tabloid press. He had his own jet, his own yacht and the glitzy lifestyle of great wealth and privilege. His very marked degree of good looks and predilection for scantily dressed blonde beauties only added to his media appeal. Naturally his sudden marriage and the apparent existence of a young child were worthy of even closer scrutiny. Merry wondered gloomily if she would be denounced as a fertile scheming former Valtinos employee.
As they were moving towards the limousine to depart for the hotel another limo drew up ahead of them and a tiny brunette on skyrocketing heels leapt out in a flurry of colourful draperies and a feathered hat. She was as exquisite as a highly sophisticated and perfectly groomed doll. ‘Oh, Charles, have I missed it?’ she exclaimed very loudly while all around her cameras began to flash.
Angel murmured something very terse in Greek while his father moved off to perform the welcome that his son clearly wasn’t in the mood to offer to the late-arriving guest. Angel relocated Elyssa with Sally and swept Merry into their vehicle without further ado.
‘Who was that?’ Merry demanded, filled with curiosity, glancing out of the window to note that the brunette was actually lodged at the security barriers exchanging comments with the paparazzi while posing like a professional. ‘Is she a model or something?’
‘Or something,’ Angel breathed with withering impatience. ‘That’s Angelina.’
‘Your mother?’ Merry gasped in disbelief. ‘She can’t be! She doesn’t look old enough.’
‘And it’s typical of her to miss the ceremony. She hates weddings,’ Angel divulged. ‘At a wedding the bride is the centre of attention and Angelina Valtinos cannot bear to be one of the crowd.’
Merry frowned. ‘Oh, I’m sure she’s not as bad as that,’ she muttered, chiding him.
‘No doubt you’ll make your own mind up on that score,’ Angel responded wryly, visibly reluctant to say any more on the topic of his mother.
‘Is she likely to be the interfering mother-in-law type?’ Merry prompted apprehensively.
‘Thee mou, you have to be kidding!’ Angel emitted a sharp cynical laugh. ‘She couldn’t care less that I’ve got married or who I’ve married but she’ll be furious that I’ve made her a grandmother because she will see that as aging.’
Merry could not comprehend the idea of such an attitude. Sybil had approached maturity with grace, freely admitting that she found it more relaxing not to always be fretting about her appearance.
‘I love the dress.’ Swiftly changing the unwelcome subject, Angel enveloped Merry in a smouldering appraisal that somehow contrived to encompass the ripe swell of her breasts below the fitted bodice. ‘You have a spectacular figure.’
Heat surged into Merry’s cheeks at that unexpected and fairly basic compliment. His fierce appraisal emanated raw male appreciation. Her stomach performed a sudden somersault, a shard of hunger piercing her vulnerable body with the stabbing accuracy of a knife that couldn’t be avoided. He could do that to her simply with a look, a tone, a smile. It always, always unnerved her, making her feel out of control.
The reception was being held at a five-star exclusive city hotel. Merry met her mother-in-law for the first time over the pre-dinner drinks. By then Angelina Valtinos had a young and very handsome Italian man on her arm, whom she airily introduced as Primo. She said very little, asked nothing and virtually ignored her son, as though she blamed him for the necessity of her having to attend his wedding.
‘She’s even worse in person than I expected,’ Sybil hissed in a tone most unlike her.
‘Shush...time will tell,’ Merry said with a shrug.
‘I wish that wretched man would take a hint,’ Sybil complained as Charles Russell hurried forward with a keen smile to escort her aunt to their seats at the top table.
Merry tried not to laugh, having quickly grasped that Angel’s father had one of those drivingly energetic and assured natures that steamrollered across Sybil’s polite lack of interest without even noticing it. But then she had equally quickly realised that she liked her father-in-law for his unquestioning acceptance of their sudden marriage. His enthusiastic response to Elyssa had also spelled out the message that he was one of those men who absolutely adored children. He exuded all the warmth and welcome that his ex-wife, Angelina, conspicuously lacked.
Angel’s brother, Prince Vitale, drifted over to exchange a few words. He was very smooth, very sophisticated and civil, but Merry was utterly intimidated by him. From the moment Angel had explained that his half-brother was of royal birth and the heir to the throne of a small, fabulously rich European country, Merry had been nervous of meeting him.
A slender blonde grasped Merry’s hand and, looking up at the taller woman, Merry froze in consternation. Recognition was instant: it was the same blonde she had twice seen in Angel’s company, a slender, leggy young woman in her early thirties with sparkling brown eyes and an easy, confident smile.
‘Merry...allow me to introduce Roula Paulides, one of my oldest friends,’ Angel proffered warmly.
With difficulty, Merry flashed a smile onto her stiff lips, her colour rising because she was mortified by her instant stiffening defensiveness with the other woman. An old friend, she should’ve thought of that possibility, she scolded herself. That more than anything else explained Angel’s enduring relationship with the beautiful blonde. Unfortunately, Roula Paulides was stunning and very much Angel’s type. Even worse and mortifyingly, she was the same woman who had been lunching with Angel on the dreadful dark day when Merry had had to tell him that she was pregnant.
It was only when Sally retrieved Elyssa to whisk her upstairs for a nap that Angel’s mother finally approached Merry. A thin smile on her face, she said, ‘Angel really should have warned me that his bride already had a child.’
‘He should’ve done,’ Merry agreed mildly.
‘Your daughter is very young. Who is her father?’ Angelina demanded with a ringing clarity that encouraged several heads to turn in their direction. ‘I hope you are aware that she cannot make use of the Valtinos name.’
‘I think you’ll find you’re wrong about that,’ Sybil declared as she strolled over to join her niece with a protective gleam in her gaze. ‘Elyssa is a Valtinos too.’
Angel’s mother stiffened, her eyes widening, her rosebud mouth tightening with disbelief. ‘My son has a child with you?’ she gasped, stricken. ‘That can’t be true!’
‘It is,’ Merry cut in hurriedly, keen to bring the fraught conversation to an end.
‘He should’ve married Roula... I always thought that if he married anyone, it would be Roula,’ Angelina Valtinos volunteered in a tone of bitter complaint.
‘Well, tact isn’t one of her skills,’ Sybil remarked ruefully when they were alone again.
‘Who’s Roula? Or don’t you know?’
Merry felt humiliated by the tense little scene and her mother-in-law’s closing comment about Roula Paulides. Roula, evidently, was something more than a harmless old friend, she gathered unhappily.
Meanwhile, shaken by what she had learned and very flushed, Angelina stalked to the end of the table to approach her son, who was talking to Vitale. A clearly hostile and brief dialogue took place between mother and son before the older woman careened angrily away again to snatch a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray and drop down into her chair.
Sybil’s eyes met Merry’s but neither of them commented.
‘Your mother’s all worked up about Elyssa,’ Merry acknowledged when Angel sank fluidly down into his seat by her side. ‘Why?’
‘The horror of being old enough to be a grandparent,’ Angel proffered wryly.
‘Are you serious?’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it. She’ll have to learn to deal.’
‘Do you see much of your mother?’ Merry probed uneasily.
‘More than I sometimes wish. She makes use of all my properties,’ Angel admitted flatly. ‘But if she wants that arrangement to continue she will have to tone herself down.’
As the afternoon wore on Merry watched Angel’s mother drink like a fish and then put on a sparkling display on the dance floor with Primo. She did not behave like a woman likely to tone her extrovert nature down. Merry also saw Angelina seek out Roula Paulides and sit with the blonde for a long time while enjoying an animated conversation. So, she was unlikely to be flavour of the month with her mother-in-law any time soon, Merry told herself wryly. Well, she could live with that, she decided, secure in the circle of Angel’s arms as they moved round the dance floor. His lean, powerful body against hers sparked all sorts of disconcerting responses. The prickly awareness of proximity and touch rippled through her in stormy, ever-rolling waves. She rested her head down on his shoulder, drinking in the raw, evocative scent of him like a drug she could not live without and only just resisting the urge to lick the strong brown column of his masculine throat.
Early evening, the newly married couple flew out to Greece and the Valtinos home on the island of Palos where Angel had been born. Merry was madly curious about the small island and the darkness that screened her view of it frustrated her. Serried lines of light ascending a hillside illuminated a small white village above the bay as the helicopter came in to land. A pair of SUVs picked them up, ferrying them up a steep road lined with cypress trees to the ultra-modern house hugging the promontory. Like a giant cruise ship, the entire house seemed to be lit up.
They stepped out into the warmth of a dusky evening and mounted the steps into the house. Staff greeted them in an octagonal marble hall ornamented by contemporary pieces of sculpture.
‘Sally will take Elyssa straight to bed,’ Angel decreed, closing his hand over Merry’s before she could dart off in the wake of her daughter. ‘She’s so tired she’ll sleep. This is our night.’
Merry coloured, suddenly insanely conscious of the ridiculous fact that she had barely acknowledged that it was their wedding night. She was tempted to argue that she had to take care of Elyssa, but was too well aware of their nanny’s calm efficiency to tilt at windmills. Even so, because she was accustomed to being a full-time mother, she found it difficult to step back from the role and accept that someone else could do the job almost as well. Her slender fingers scrabbled indecisively in the grip of Angel’s large masculine hand until she finally followed his lead and the staff already moving ahead of them with their bags.
‘Supper has been prepared for us. We’ll eat in our room,’ Angel told her lazily. ‘I’m glad to be home. You’ll love it here. Midsummer it can be unbearably hot but in June Palos is lush with growth and the air is fresh.’
‘I didn’t realise that you were so attached to your home,’ Merry confided, running her attention over the display of impressive paintings in the corridor.
‘Palos has been the Valtinos base for generations,’ Angel told her. ‘The original house was demolished and rebuilt by my grandfather. He fancied himself as something of an architect but his design ambitions were thwarted when he and my grandmother split up and she refused to move out. His house plan was then divided in two, one half for him, the other half for her and it’s still like that. Some day I hope to turn it back into one house.’
Merry was frowning. ‘Your grandparents divorced?’
‘No, neither of them wanted a divorce, but after my mother’s birth they separated. He was an incorrigible Romeo and she couldn’t live with him,’ Angel admitted as carved wooden doors were spread back at the end of the corridor. ‘I never knew either of them. My grandfather didn’t marry until he was almost sixty and my grandmother was in her forties when my mother was born. They died before my parents married.’
On the threshold, Merry paused to admire the magnificent bedroom. An opulent seating area took up one corner of the vast room. Various doors led off to bathroom facilities and a large and beautifully fitted dressing room where staff were already engaged in unpacking their cases. A table sat beside patio doors that led out onto a terrace overlooking a fabulous infinity swimming pool lit with underwater lights. In the centre of the room a giant bed fit for Cleopatra and draped in spicy Mediterranean colours sat on elaborate gilded feet. Her expressive face warmed, her pulses humming beneath her calm surface because she ached for him, and that awareness of her own hunger embarrassed her as nothing else could because she was mortifyingly conscious that she had no control around Angel.
‘Let’s eat,’ Angel suggested lazily.
A slender figure clad in loose linen trousers and an emerald-green top with ties, Merry took a seat. She had dressed comfortably for the flight and had marvelled that, even in designer jeans and a black shirt, Angel could still look far more sleek and sophisticated than she did. No matter what he wore, he had that knack, if there was such a thing, of always looking classy and exclusive.
Wine was poured, the first course delivered. It was all food calculated to tempt the appetite, nothing heavy or over spiced and, because she hadn’t eaten much at the wedding, Merry ate hungrily. During the main course, she heard splashing from the direction of the pool and then a sudden bout of high-pitched giggling. She began awkwardly to twist her head around to look outside.
‘Diavole!’ Angel swore with a sudden frown, flying upright to thrust open the doors onto the terrace.
Merry rose to her feet more slowly and followed him to see what had jerked him out of his seat as though rudely yanked up by invisible steel wires. She was very much taken aback to discover that the source of the noise was her mother-in-law and her boyfriend, both of whom appeared to be cavorting naked in the pool. She blinked in disbelief while Angel addressed the pair in angry Greek. Primo reacted first, hauling himself hurriedly out of the water and yanking a towel off a lounger to wind it round his waist. Angelina hissed back at her son in furious Greek before leaving the pool by the steps, stark naked and evidently quite unconcerned by that reality. Her companion strode forward to toss her a robe, his discomfiture at the interruption unhidden. Angel’s mother, however, took her time about covering up, her tempestuous fury at Angel’s intrusion fuelling a wealth of outraged objections.
Merry swallowed hard on her growing embarrassment while Angel stood his ground, his dark deep voice sardonic and clipped with derision as he switched to English. ‘You will not use this pool while I, my wife or my daughter are in residence.’
‘This is my home!’ Angelina proclaimed. ‘You have no right to make a demand like that!’
‘This house belongs to me and there are now rules to be observed,’ Angel sliced back harshly. ‘If you cannot respect those rules, find somewhere else to stay on the island.’
And with that final ringing threat, Angel swung back and pressed a hand to Merry’s shoulder to guide her firmly back indoors. His mother ranted back at him in Greek and he ignored the fac
t, ramming shut the doors again and returning to their interrupted meal.
Unnerved by what she had witnessed, Merry dropped heavily back into her chair, her face hot with unease. ‘I think your mother’s had too much to drink.’
Angel shot her a grim glance. ‘Don’t make excuses for her. I should have told her that she was no longer welcome here before we married. Her conduct is inappropriate and I refuse to have you or Elyssa subjected to her behaviour in what is now your home.’
Merry sipped at her wine, stunned by the display she had witnessed and wondering helplessly what it had been like for him to grow up with so avant-garde a mother. Angelina seemed to have no boundaries, no concept of what was acceptable. It must have been a nightmare to grow up in the care of so self-indulgent a woman. For the first time she understood why Angel was so close to his father: he only had one parent, he had only ever had one parent. Parenting had been something that Angelina Valtinos had probably never done and she understood why Angel had been placed in a boarding school at a very young age.
As silence reclaimed the pool beyond the terrace, Angel audibly expelled his breath, the fierce tension in his lean, darkly handsome features and the set of his wide shoulders fading. He was determined that Merry would not be embarrassed by his mother’s attention-grabbing tactics. Merry was too prim to comfortably cope with the scenes his mother liked to throw. In any case, his wife was entitled to the older woman’s respect. Angelina could dislike her all she wished but, ultimately, she had to accept that her son’s wife was the new mistress of the house and had the right to expect certain standards of behaviour.