had, and he hadn’t liked it either; he and his two brothers had worked damned hard the past ten years to develop the one gallery they had then owned into three, spread across London, New York and Paris, and to build them up to become some of the most prestigious private galleries and auction houses in the world. And the three brothers were now reaping some of the benefits of that hard work, all of them extremely wealthy and able to live a lifestyle befitting that wealth, then it certainly wasn’t because it had just been handed to them on a silver platter.
The scornful expression on Eva Foster’s delicately lovely face showed she obviously thought otherwise!
As she was also under some strange delusion that Michael was the father of her niece and nephew...
It was time—past time!—that he took control of this situation. ‘In your opinion.’ He nodded tersely as he moved to sit behind his black marble desk. ‘You were about to tell me why you’re here instead of your sister...?’
Eva was well aware of the fact that D’Angelo had deliberately chosen to resume his seat behind his desk, as a way of putting some distance between the two of them at the same time as it put their conversation onto a businesslike footing. Although how anyone could think, or talk, of babies in a ‘businesslike’ way was beyond her!
D’Angelo wasn’t at all what she had been expecting of the man who had first charmed and then impregnated her younger sister. Rachel had been fun-loving, and, yes, slightly irresponsible, having decided to travel around the world for a year once she had finished university, only to come back to London ten months later, alone and pregnant. With this man’s baby—which had turned out to be babies, plural.
The man seated behind the desk wasn’t what Eva had imagined when her sister had talked so enthusiastically of her lover’s charm and good looks, and the fun they’d had together in Paris. Oh, this man was certainly handsome enough, dark and brooding—dangerously so, she would hazard a guess, and causing Eva to give an inner wince as she looked at the mark her hand had left on one of those perfectly chiselled cheeks. No doubt that dangerous aura this man exuded was counteracted by the tight control he also showed, otherwise she might have found herself with a similar imprint on her own cheek!
His was such an austere handsomeness: icy black eyes, harshly etched features, his manner rigidly controlled, and there was a cool aloofness to him that it was difficult for Eva to imagine ever melting, even—especially!—when he made love with a woman.
She certainly couldn’t imagine him and the slightly irresponsible Rachel as ever having gone out together, let alone—
Maybe it would be better, for all concerned, if Eva’s thoughts didn’t dwell on the physical side of Rachel’s relationship with this man. A physical relationship he continued to deny!
Her mouth thinned as she answered him. ‘I’m here instead of Rachel because my sister is dead.’
He gave a visible start. ‘What...?’
If Eva had thought to make him feel guilty, to get some reaction other than shock with the starkness of her statement, then she was disappointed; he looked suitably shocked, but in a distant way, rather than as a man hearing of the death of an ex-lover.
Eva drew in a sharp, shaky breath as she attempted to keep her own emotions under control. It was some weeks since she had needed to explain to anyone that her sister had died, and to do so now, to the man who had once been Rachel’s lover—even if he denied all knowledge of it—was particularly hard.
Just as Eva still found it impossible to believe, to accept, that her sister Rachel, only twenty-two, and supposedly with all of her life still ahead of her, had died, quite peaceably in the end, just three short months ago.
And Eva had been trying to cope ever since with her own grief as well as the care of the twins. It was a battle she had finally had to accept she was losing, physically as well as financially. First Rachel had been so ill, and then she had died, and it had been—and still was—almost impossible for Eva to work when she had cared for Rachel and then had the full-time day-to-day care—and the sleepless nights—of the twins to cope with. Her savings had now dwindled almost to nothing, certainly quicker than she was able to replenish them with the few photographic assignments she had been free to accept these past six months. Assignments when she had been able to take the twins with her, which was becoming increasingly difficult the bigger and more vocal they got.
Which was why Eva had decided, rather than giving D’Angelo the opportunity to fob her off in a telephone call, to instead use the last of her savings to fly herself and the twins over to Paris yesterday, so that she might confront the babies’ father face to face with his responsibilities.
Much as Eva might hate having to do it, after much soul-searching, she knew she no longer had any choice but to try and seek D’Angelo’s help from a financial point of view, at least, for the good of the twins.
Michael stood up abruptly as he saw how pale Eva Foster’s face had become, adding to that air of fragility. Her sister’s death, caring for the twins, went some way to explaining those dark shadows beneath those beautiful violet-coloured eyes.
He crossed economically to the drinks cabinet in the seating area of his office to look at the array of bottles, deciding against offering her alcohol and instead choosing to bring her a bottle of water from the small fridge. He very much doubted Eva Foster would have accepted drinking a more reviving whisky, when she had two young babies in her care.
‘Here, let me take Sam, while you sit down over here,’ he rasped abruptly as he saw Eva Foster was swaying slightly on her canvas-shod feet. Not waiting for her reply, he took the baby from her unresisting arms before placing his free hand lightly beneath her elbow to guide her over to the seating area and eased her down onto the black leather sofa.
‘Sorry about that,’ Eva murmured shakily after taking a much-needed sip of the ice-cold water. It was very warm outside, and it had been a long walk to the Archangel gallery from the cheap hotel she had booked into with the twins yesterday. ‘I think I’m doing okay and then suddenly the grief just hits me again when I’m least expecting it.’
Although she should have realised that this meeting with Rachel’s lover was going to be far from easy. Just as coming to Paris at all, seeking out D’Angelo, hadn’t been an easy decision for her to make in the first place. In Eva’s eyes, it almost smacked of defeat.
But she’d had no other choice, she assured herself determinedly; this was for the twins’ benefit, not hers. As it was, she would far rather spit in this man’s eye than so much as have to speak to him, let alone ask him for help!
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ D’Angelo murmured gruffly.
Was he? Considering he had denied all knowledge of Rachel just minutes ago, Eva found that a little hard to believe!
She still couldn’t quite come to terms with Rachel ever having been involved with this austerely cold man at all; Rachel had been outgoing and warm in nature, and this man was anything but. But maybe it had been a case of opposites attracting? D’Angelo was certainly attractive enough, and he possessed an inborn confidence, an arrogance, that Rachel might have found attractive, even challenging. This man’s controlled aloofness would represent a challenge to any red-blooded female.
Even Eva?
The last thing she wanted was to find the man who had fathered the twins in the least attractive!
Eva sat forward to place the bottle of water on the coffee table in front of her. ‘I think you can put him down too now...’ she drawled ruefully as she realised that Sam—the traitor!—had also fallen asleep on one of D’Angelo’s broad and muscled shoulders. All those hours of pacing and walking, a twin on each of her shoulders, and D’Angelo just had to hold them to have the twins instantly fall asleep!
Because they instinctively recognised who he was? Maybe. As Eva had learnt these past few months, babies were far more intuitive than she had ever realised; the twins had both certainly quickly picked up on Eva’s own nervousness in caring for them twenty-four seven, making