by Lynne Graham
Daisy was wreathed with smiles. ‘I see Angelo’s flowers have arrived.’
‘Angelo? I assumed you—’
‘Well, I was going to, but when I overheard Angelo ordering them on the phone I decided to leave it to another day.’
Kelda, propped up against her banked pillows, was rigid. ‘Why would Angelo send me flowers?’
Daisy opened her eyes very wide. ‘Can you think of anyone else with more reason?’
‘Reason? What reason?’ Kelda demanded shakily.
Her mother sat down. ‘When Tomaso called Angelo yesterday and told him that you were having emergency surgery, I was angry. When Angelo arrived, I was very upset...well, I said some pretty unforgivable things,’ Daisy confided. ‘All these months, you’ve been alone and he’s been running round like Casanova—’
Kelda bit the soft underside of her lower lip and tasted blood.
‘But here in this hospital yesterday, Angelo was distraught,’ Daisy asserted quietly. ‘Really, genuinely frantic with worry about you and the baby. I’ve never seen Angelo like that before. I never realised how emotional Angelo really is underneath the cool front. Tomaso always said he was but I have to admit that I thought that was the fond father talking. Well, as you can imagine, while we were waiting to hear how your surgery had gone, it was a very tense time—’
‘Yes?’ As her mother’s delivery slowed up, Kelda prodded her on, prickles of foreboding tightening her muscles.
‘We didn’t interfere.’ Daisy had stood up again, clearly becoming uncomfortable under the onslaught of her daughter’s strained gaze. ‘But when it emerged that you had actually told Angelo that your baby wasn’t his, well, naturally Tomaso and I were very shocked—’
‘Naturally,’ Kelda repeated in a flattened whisper.
‘How could you lie to him like that?’ Her mother asked without comprehension. ‘We tried to accept that you were both adults and that you knew what you were doing but of course we assumed that, when your pregnancy started to show, Angelo would hear about it and go to see you and things would be sorted out. Thank goodness, Angelo had enough intelligence to realise that you had been lying—’
‘Clever Angelo,’ Kelda muttered tightly, thinking that she would be hearing about Saint Angelo next. She was now the baddie in this scenario. Angelo now stood absolved of all insensitivity towards her plight in recent times. Then their parents were so innocent. They did not have a clue that Angelo’s sole ambition seven months ago had been to buy her into bed and establish her as his mistress.
‘I want what’s best for you and the baby,’ Daisy emphasised.
‘I already have what’s best,’ Kelda said woodenly.
‘Angelo had breakfast with us and then he went to bed for a couple of hours. He’ll be in later. He says that you’re getting married—’
‘Does he indeed?’ Kelda’s pale complexion was consumed by hot colour. Angelo says...her mother had reeled that off with the same naïve faith as she so frequently resorted to ‘Tomaso says...’ When the males in Daisy’s life spoke, she endowed them with oracle-like brilliance.
‘I can’t tell you how happy we are—’
‘He hasn’t asked me yet.’ Kelda pushed out the admission through clenched teeth.
Her mother’s gentle eyes rested rather unfortunately on the swell of Kelda’s stomach and then flicked up to her daughter’s burning face. ‘You’re hardly going to say no, are you?’ she said, not with satire but with gentle conviction that no woman in Kelda’s position could possibly say no to a respectable proposal.
‘Mother, Angelo has just got engaged to Isabel Dunning—’
‘Don’t be silly. Isabel is engaged to his personal assistant, Roger Bamford,’ Daisy contradicted with amusement. ‘Actually Roger isn’t his PA now. Angelo promoted him and now the Dunnings are a bit happier about accepting Roger into the family.’
Wide green eyes blinked at her bewilderment. ‘But—’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ Daisy murmured cheerfully, determined to ignore her daughter’s response to the good news.
Kelda gritted her teeth and said nothing. It didn’t matter whether Angelo was engaged or not. It made no difference. She was outraged that Angelo could calmly inform their parents that they were getting married without even mentioning the idea to her first. It was a subtle form of blackmail and not one which would profit him. She had not the smallest intention of being married off for the sake of appearances.
It was late afternoon when Angelo strolled in. Superbly turned out in a navy suit complete with fitted waistcoat and chain, he looked dressed to kill. He also looked so gorgeous that the nurse, engaged in taking Kelda’s blood-pressure, kept on pumping and nearly cut off the blood supply to her patient’s arm. Frozen with frank admiration, she stared.
‘How are you?’ Angelo asked in his rich, slightly accented drawl.
Something wild quivered momentarily deep down inside Kelda as she collided with his clear golden eyes. Resolutely she suppressed it as the nurse took her reluctant leave. ‘Fine.’
‘We’ll get married as soon as you are out of here,’ Angelo imparted with studied casualness.
Silence...cue for applause, she wondered or was he expecting her to leap from her hospital bed and embrace his knees with gratitude.
Like someone engaged in a high-rolling poker game, Angelo’s keen gaze probed her exquisite face. ‘We’ll stick it out for about six months after the baby’s born,’ he murmured silkily. ‘Then we’ll have one or two loud disagreements. You could possibly contrive to run home to Mummy once or twice. We separate...we divorce but on a civilised basis, pleading mutual incompatibility. The family will be disappointed but two priorities will have been met. The baby will have my name and everyone will be happy. What do you think?’
CHAPTER NINE
KELDA, trapped humiliatingly between rage and disbelief, had found herself hanging helplessly on his every word. Sizzling emerald eyes rested on his starkly handsome dark features. ‘Do you really want to know what I think?’
‘I do appreciate that this has come as something of a surprise,’ Angelo fielded with teeth-clenching arrogance and the most extraordinary smile playing about his sensual mouth. ‘So, I’ll leave you to mull it over, shall I?’
With a blind, shaking hand, Kelda swiped the vase of flowers off the bedside cabinet and threw it at him with a strength born of uncontrollable rage. That he neatly sidestepped the deluge did nothing to calm her down. ‘You take your flowers, your bloody priorities and your proposal and get out!’ she shrieked at the top of her voice. ‘I didn’t want to be your mistress but I want to be your wife even less and that’s saying something! If you got down on your knees and begged for the next twenty years, I wouldn’t say yes...so go and ask Adele or Caroline or Felicity...and don’t forget Fiona! She does for conservatories what Jayne Mansfield did for sweaters!’
‘I’ll come back this evening,’ Angelo drawled, astonishingly unconcerned by the reception he had received.
‘Get out of here,’ Kelda raged at him, ‘and don’t you dare come back!’
Sobbing with a wild mixture of emotions, Kelda was crawling awkwardly about the floor, picking up flowers, when the nurse came in. It hurt, and that only made her angrier.
‘Miss Wyatt!’ the nurse gasped. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’
‘Don’t let that man in here again!’ Kelda hissed, letting herself be assisted back into bed. ‘I can’t stand him!’
‘Was it something he said?’
‘Yes...no...oh, I don’t know!’ Kelda subsided in a damp heap, exhausted by her own loss of control.
‘He couldn’t have meant it,’ the little nurse said shyly. ‘My friend told me that he spent half of last night in the chapel. He must have been praying for you.’
Angelo, praying? Kelda could not imagine Angelo praying. She sniffed, had a tissue thrust helpfully into her hand. She had been propositioned with a divorce and even though she would not have agreed to marryin
g him in any circumstances that had been particularly hurtful.
What did it matter if the baby had his name? Why should she have to consider other people’s happiness when she was so wretchedly unhappy herself? And to suggest that putting their parents through the distress of watching their fake marriage disintegrate within months was kinder than never marrying at all was ridiculous! She wanted to be open and honest. No more deception. How dared he expect her to agree to such a proposal...how dared he?
Angelo strolled in after tea as though nothing had happened. Kelda couldn’t believe her eyes. He had shed his formal suit. In an oatmeal sweater that highlighted his darkness and close-fitting black jeans that hugged his lean muscular thighs, he looked soul-destroyingly spectacular.
Excitement burned through her nerve-endings, speeding up her heartbeat and sending her pulse-rate racing. She drew in a sharp, deep breath, battling in alarm against the surging tide of dangerous physical awareness.
‘This morning I believed that I was suggesting the only kind of marriage that you would even consider,’ Angelo imparted with unalloyed cool. ‘I know how you feel about me.’
Kelda pushed unsteady hands in a raking motion through her torrent of curls. ‘Do you?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Russ Seadon was getting married to your best friend?’ he asked without warning.
She tilted her chin. ‘Would you have believed me?’
‘I don’t think that’s why you didn’t choose to enlighten me,’ Angelo fielded. ‘I think you felt cornered and he was a good excuse to employ when I jumped to the wrong conclusion.’
‘I didn’t need an excuse. It wasn’t important enough for me to feel I should explain myself,’ Kelda told him carelessly.
A muscle jerked beside his unsmiling mouth. ‘You didn’t care what I thought?’
‘It wasn’t anything different from what you’ve thought so often before.’
‘But these days you don’t mind actually encouraging me to misjudge you...in fact, you get something of a high out of it!’
The condemnation roused colour in her cheeks.
Angelo scrutinised her with impassive eyes. ‘And when he strolled out on to centre stage in that towel it was just too convenient for words...’
Every muscle in her body tensed. Striving to look blank, she stared back at him.
‘You asked him to play ham, didn’t you? It was prearranged,’ Angelo essayed
Kelda decided defiance was the better part of valour. ‘So what if I did? I wanted you out of my life again!’
He was pale beneath his bronzed skin, his dark eyes hooded. ‘Game-playing is dangerous in relationships, cara.’
‘I wouldn’t dignify what we shared with the label of “relationship”,’ Kelda responded tightly. ‘Men like you don’t have relationships with their mistresses.’
‘Dio...I’ve never had a mistress!’ Angelo slashed back at her with sudden frustration. ‘Do you remember cutting me dead that first night? Do you remember challenging me later in your apartment? Do you remember letting me believe that you would continue to come between our parents? Or was all that my imagination?’
Kelda had stiffened under attack. ‘No but—’
‘You drove me over the edge that night and you meant to do it,’ he condemned.
‘I certainly didn’t ask to be lured out to Italy—’
‘Where you had a hell of a good time in spite of all your complaints—’
‘I did not enjoy being arrested and locked up!’
‘But you had no complaints about what followed,’ Angelo murmured softly.
That was unarguable. He had hit her on her weakest flank. Involuntarily she reddened, her undisciplined mind suddenly awash with erotic recollections. She bent her head. ‘I have no desire to talk about that—’
‘That is unfortunate, considering that your present—condition,’ he selected smoothly, ‘relates to mutual passion and an outstanding lack of common sense.’
‘Is the lack of common sense laid at my door or yours?’ she sniped hotly.
‘I should think entirely at mine,’ Angelo sighed, languorous dark eyes uncomfortably intent on her. ‘Considering that I was the idiot who grossly overestimated the extent of your sexual experience—’
Kelda very nearly dropped the glass of water in her hand. Her head shot up, fiery hair springing back from her disconcerted face.
Angelo dealt her a searching glance and then strolled gracefully over to the window. ‘In Italy, I was still hung up on six years of bitterness. Your near-death experience yesterday may not have done much for you but, believe me, it focused my intelligence as never before on all the inconsistencies between rumour and reality. And the reality is that you have not had that many lovers...’
Kelda was appalled by what he was saying. Her brittle front of sophistication and bitchiness was her sole defence against Angelo. And he was coolly ripping it to shreds. Yet her pride depended on that front. She could not bear the idea that Angelo should even come close to suspecting that she was less experienced with men than he had assumed.
‘And even now, when we have so many more important matters to deal with,’ Angelo essayed drily, ‘you’re wondering how to overturn my assumptions because I have come painfully close to blowing your mystique right out of the water! In my opinion, you hadn’t had a recent lover and I assume that you were not taking any contraception either—’
‘Contraception fails sometimes,’ Kelda responded with rich sarcasm.
Angelo shot her a glittering glance of naked perception. ‘You may be the most passionate woman I have ever shared a bed with, but a woman who slept around with the generosity you suggest would have demonstrated practised skills that you did not—’
Her humiliation plumbed new depths. Her eyes blazing, her generous mouth flattened into a strained line, she snapped, ‘Shut up!’
Angelo ignored the invitation. ‘And because I rejoice in being equally obstinate, I persisted in holding on to my original opinion of your character even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.’
‘Have you finished?’
Angelo took a deep breath and then swore. ‘I am trying to say sorry, but you don’t make that easy.’
Sorry was even less welcome than the most base of insults from his corner. Kelda ground her teeth together. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘For all this.’ Angelo spread lean brown hands wide with in-bred elegance of movement. ‘It’s all my fault. I started it—’
‘Finished it—’ Kelda heard herself remind him.
‘It didn’t finish for me,’ Angelo surveyed her with unreadable hooded eyes, his attention sliding almost compulsively to the visible swell of her abdomen beneath the bedclothes. ‘And it isn’t finished for you either.’
Kelda dealt him an outraged stare. ‘Stop looking at me like that!’
‘I like looking at you now...now that I know the baby is mine,’ Angelo proffered without a shade of embarrassment. ‘Five months ago that baby seemed like an unbridgeable barrier between us. But now it is a link that nothing can break. I wish you could have told me the truth then. If you had, I would have been with you. I never thought of having a child before but, since yesterday, I haven’t been able to think of anything else.’
The truth of that confession was blatant. Kelda, hectically flushed, raised her knees slightly and rearranged the bedding to conceal the evidence of her fertility as best she could. A link that nothing could break, he said. She had refused to appreciate that fact before.
‘Don’t you think that for the sake of the baby we could live together?’ Angelo demanded with sudden unconcealed impatience.
‘Certainly not. I couldn’t stand it!’ she slung back at him, hot moisture scalding her eyelids.
‘I offered the divorce as what you might term a sweetener to the deal,’ Angelo admitted.
‘Some sweetener!’ Kelda muttered, pleating the sheet with restive fingers.
‘You wouldn’t need to feel trap
ped. I would give you a divorce at any time if you asked for one—’
‘Angelo, when I want a discreetly unfaithful rich husband in place of my peaceful independence and freedom, I’ll advertise! The idea of marrying you,’ Kelda framed, fighting the tremor in her thickened voice, ‘well, it appeals to me about as much as twenty years of hard labour in a swamp with no time off for good behaviour.’
Angelo had moved forward. The atmosphere vibrated with tension. Refusing to be inhibited by his proximity, Kelda surveyed him with a provocatively curled lip.
‘With you in my bed, I would not be unfaithful.’
Kelda sent him a winging glance of forced amusement although her spinal cord had tightened up another notch. ‘But I’m not going to be in your bed ever again, Angelo.’
‘You want to lay a bet on that?’ Angelo sank down on the edge of her bed, shimmering golden eyes ruthlessly pinned her. ‘I look at you and you burn. I touch you and you go up in flames. You carry my child inside you. If I branded you with my name, you couldn’t be more mine!’
‘You arrogant sw—’ Kelda began to spit.
Angelo reached for her in one powerful movement. Deftly angling his body to one side so that he would not hurt her, he took her mouth in a devouring kiss that she felt right down to her toes and back up again. She reacted like a woman possessed. With one hand she hit out at him in blind rage, but the other hand inexplicably dived into the springy depths of his hair, holding him to her.
He kissed her breathless. Great rolling waves of excitement overwhelmed her. The hand that had balled into a fist uncurled and slid under his sweater instead and exulted in the satin-smooth skin of his back before sliding across his taut flat stomach to rake into the furrow of silky hair that disappeared beneath his belt.
Angelo jerked violently against her and grabbed her hand, pushing her fingers in an unrestrained expression of need down to the thrust of his hard thighs. He groaned, swore against her mouth, momentarily stiffened as though he was striving to will himself into a withdrawal, and then gathered her fully into his arms with a stifled sound of all male satisfaction.