to show respect!’
‘You wouldn’t know respect if it bit you on the arse!’ Merry flamed back at him with helpless vulgarity. ‘And I am so sorry I didn’t grovel with gratitude at the offer of a wedding ring the way you obviously expected.’
‘No, you’re not sorry!’ Angel roared back at her equally loudly. ‘You enjoyed dragging me over the coals, questioning my motivation and commitment, and not for one minute did you seriously consider what I was offering...’
‘Stop shouting at me!’ Merry warned him, reeling in shock from that sudden volatile surge of anger from him, not having appreciated that that rage could lie so close to his seemingly cool surface.
‘I’ve said sorry every damn way I know how but you’re after revenge, not a way forward, and there’s nothing I can do to change that!’ Angel growled, throwing open the back door to go back into the house and leave.
There was sufficient truth in that stormy welter of accusations to draw Merry up short and make her question her attitude. ‘I’m not after revenge...that’s ridiculous!’ she protested weakly, closing a staying hand over his arm as he shot her yet another murderous smouldering glance before turning back to the door.
Sorry every damn way I know how rang afresh in her ears and tightened her grip on his muscular forearm. ‘Angel, please...let’s calm down.’
‘For what good reason would I calm down?’ Angel raked down at her. ‘This was a pointless attempt on my part to change things between us.’
Her teeth were chattering with nerves. ‘Yes, I can see that but you storming off in a rage is only going to make things worse,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘Maybe I haven’t been fair to you, maybe I haven’t given you a decent hearing, but you came at me with this like a rocket out of nowhere and I don’t adapt quickly to new ideas the way you do!’
‘You adapted fast enough to me in bed!’ Angel husked with sizzling clarity.
‘That’s your massive ego talking!’ Merry launched back at him irately.
‘No, it’s not,’ Angel growled, yanking her up against him, shifting his lithe hips, ensuring she recognised how turned-on he was. ‘You make me want you.’
‘It’s my fault?’ Merry carolled in disbelief even as her whole body tilted into his, as magnetised by his arousal as a thirsty plant suddenly placed within reach of water. Little tremors were running through her as she struggled to get a grip on the prickling tightness of her nipples and the heat building between her thighs. An unbearable ache followed that she positively shrank from reliving in his vicinity. She wanted to slap herself, she wanted to slap him, she wanted to freeze the moment and replay it her way, in which she would draw back from him in withering disgust and say something terribly clever and wounding that would hold him at bay.
‘You just can’t bring yourself to admit that you’re the same,’ Angel gritted, bending his arrogant dark head, one hand meshing into the tumble of her hair to drag her head back and expose her throat. His mouth found that slender corded column and nipped and tasted up to her ear, awakening a shower of tingling sensation, and she was electrified and dizzy with longing, wanting what she knew she shouldn’t, wanting with a hunger suppressed and denied for too many months, craving the release he could give.
And then he kissed her, crushing her ripe mouth, his tongue plunging and retreating, and she saw stars and whirling multicoloured planets behind her lowered lids while her body fizzed like a firework display, leaving her weak with hunger. She kissed him back, hands rising to delve into the crisp luxuriance of his hair, framing, holding, needing. It was frantic, out of control, the way it always was for them.
Angel wrenched her back from him, long brown fingers biting into her slim shoulders to keep her upright and gazing up into his blazing liquid-honey eyes. ‘No, I’m not a one-trick pony or a cheap one-night stand. You’ll have to marry me to get any more of that,’ he told her with derision 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
