LITMIR.BIZ

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as he slapped a business card down on the table. ‘My phone number...should you think better of your attitude today.’

      When he was gone, Merry paced back and forth in her small sitting room, facing certain realities. She hadn’t seriously considered Angel’s supposed solution. But then that was more his fault than her own. Warning her that he intended to trail her into court and fight for access to their daughter had scarcely acted as a good introduction to his alternative offer. She was angry and bitter and she wasn’t about to apologise for the fact, but possibly she should have listened and asked more and lost her temper less.

      In addition, Angel’s visit had worsened rather than improved their relations because now she knew he was prepared to drag her through the courts in an effort to win greater access to Elyssa. And what if his ambitions did not stop there? What if he intended to try and gain sole custody of their daughter and take Elyssa away from her? Paling and breathing rapidly, Merry decided to visit her aunt and discuss her mounting concern and sense of being under threat with her.

      Sybil, however, was nowhere to be found in the comfortable open-plan ground floor of her home and it was only when Merry heard her daughter that she realised her aunt and her daughter were upstairs. She was disconcerted to walk into Sybil’s bedroom where Elyssa was playing on the floor and find her aunt trailing clothes out of the wardrobes to pile into the two suitcases sitting open on the bed.

      ‘My goodness, where are you going?’ Merry demanded in surprise.

      Sybil dealt her a shamefaced glance. ‘I meant to phone you but I had so many other calls to make that I didn’t get a chance. Your mother’s in trouble and I’m flying out to Perth to be with her,’ she told her.

      Merry blinked in astonishment. ‘Trouble?’ she queried.

      Sybil grimaced. ‘Keith’s been having an affair and he’s walked out on your mother. She’s suicidal, poor lamb.’

      ‘Oh, dear,’ Merry framed, sinking down on the edge of the bed to lift her daughter onto her lap. She was sad to hear that news, but her troubled relationship with her dysfunctional parent prevented her from feeling truly sympathetic and that fact always filled her with remorse. Not for the first time she marvelled that Sybil could be so forgiving of her kid sister’s frailties. Time and time again she had watched her aunt wade into Natalie’s emotional dramas and rush to sort them out with infinite supportive compassion. Sometimes, too, Merry wondered why it was that she, Natalie’s daughter, could not be so forgiving, so tolerant, so willing to offer another fresh chance. Possibly that could be because Merry remembered Natalie’s resentment of her as a child too strongly, she told herself guiltily. Natalie hadn’t wanted to be anyone’s Mummy and her constant rejections had deeply wounded Merry.

      ‘Oh, dear, indeed,’ her aunt sighed worriedly. ‘Natalie was distraught when she phoned me and you know she does stupid things when she’s upset! She really shouldn’t be alone right now.’

      ‘Doesn’t she have any friends out there?’ Merry prompted.

      Sybil frowned, clearly finding Merry’s response unfeeling. ‘Family’s family and you and her don’t get on well enough for you to go. Nor would it be right to subject Elyssa to that journey. Natalie wouldn’t want a baby around either,’ she conceded ruefully.

      ‘She really can’t be bothered with young children,’ Merry agreed wryly. ‘Do you have to go?’

      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

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