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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 an 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

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