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
