gift. Elyssa chortled with satisfaction and bestowed a huge smile on him before sticking the new toy into her mouth and chewing happily on it.
‘She has your eyes,’ Angel remarked. ‘She’s incredibly pretty.’
In spite of her desire to remain unmoved, Merry flushed with pride. ‘I think so too.’
‘She’s also unmistakeably mine,’ Angel intoned with unashamed approval.
‘Well, you already knew that,’ Merry could not resist reminding him. ‘She was DNA tested after she was born.’
Angel winced. ‘I never once doubted that the child you were carrying was mine but in view of inheritance rights...and us not being married...it was best to have it legally confirmed.’ He hesitated before turning his classic bronzed profile to study her levelly. ‘But I let the lawyers take over and run the whole show and that was a mistake. I see that now.’
Merry jerked her chin in acknowledgement, not trusting herself to speak.
‘I didn’t know any other way to handle it,’ Angel admitted grimly. ‘I took the easy way out...unfortunately the easy way turned out to be the wrong way.’
Taken aback by that admission, Merry dragged in a ragged breath and turned away to make the coffee. A fat burst of chuckles from her daughter made her flip back and she saw Elyssa bouncing on the rug, held steady by Angel’s hands and revelling in both the exercise and the attention.
When Elyssa tired of that, Angel turned out her toy box for her. Tiger slunk out from under the chair where he had been hiding since Angel’s arrival and moved hesitantly closer to investigate.
‘Diavolos!’ Angel exclaimed in surprise. ‘Where did the dog come from?’
Startled by Angel’s deep voice, Tiger shot back under the chair.
‘He’s been here all along. His name’s Tiger.’
‘Kind of nervous for a dog called Tiger and hardly a stream-lined predator.’
‘OK. He’s fat, you can say it. He’s addicted to food and he wasn’t socialised properly when he was young. He came from a puppy farm that was closed down,’ Merry volunteered, extending a cup of black coffee to Angel as he vaulted lithely upright, suddenly dominating the small room with his height and the breadth of his shoulders.
‘I didn’t know you were keen on dogs.’
‘I practically grew up helping in the rescue centre.’ Merry could hear herself gabbling because her heart was pounding wildly in her chest as Angel moved towards her and even breathing was a challenge beneath the onslaught of his gleaming dark golden eyes. ‘I—’
‘Tell it like it is,’ Angel urged sibilantly.
Her smooth brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You still want me as much as I want you,’ he breathed huskily, sipping his coffee as if he were merely making casual conversation.
‘I don’t want to have that sort of discussion with you,’ Merry told him curtly, colour burnishing her cheeks as she wondered if he really could tell that easily that she was still vulnerable around him. Not that she would do anything about it or let him do anything about it, she reasoned with pride. Attraction was nothing more than a hormonal trick and, in her case, a very dangerous misdirection.
‘Avoid? Deny?’ Angel derided, his beautiful wilful mouth curling, his smouldering gaze enhanced by unfairly long black lashes welded to her fast-reddening face. ‘What’s the point?’
‘If you continue this I’m going to ask you to leave,’ Merry warned thinly.
And genuine amusement engulfed Angel and laughter lit up his lean, dark features. ‘I’m not about to pounce on you with our daughter watching! Believe me, while she’s around, you’re safe,’ he assured her smoothly.
Inexplicably that little exchange made Merry feel foolish and rather as though she had ended up with egg on her face, which was burning like a furnace. Even now, many months after the event, she couldn’t laugh about what had happened between them. Looking back, it was as if blinding sunlight overlaid and blurred the explosive passion she couldn’t begin to explain and never wanted to experience again. Unfortunately for her, her body had a different ambition. One glimpse of Angel’s darkly handsome face and long, sleek, muscular frame and she was as tense as a bowstring, caught between forbidden pleasure at his sheer physical beauty and angry self-loathing at her susceptibility to it.
‘I brought lunch with me,’ Angel revealed, startling her.
Her eyes widened. ‘But I have a client due.’
‘I’ll return in an hour. You know we need to talk about Elyssa and how we move on from here,’ Angel pointed out as if it were the most reasonable and natural thing in the world when in truth they had never ever talked about anything.
‘Yes...yes, of course,’ she muttered uneasily, because she could see that a talk made sense and it was surely better to get it all over in one go and in one day, she told herself soothingly. ‘I should be free in an hour, but—’
‘I’ll make it an hour and a half,’ Angel cut in decisively as he moved towards the door.
Merry skimmed his arm with an uncertain finger to attract his attention. ‘I’m afraid Elyssa has...er...stained your sweater,’ she told him awkwardly.
His amused grin flashed perfect white teeth and enhanced the sculpted fullness of his wide, sensual mouth. ‘It’s not a problem. I brought a change of clothes with me.’
‘My goodness, you were organised,’ she mumbled in surprise as he strode down the path and leant down into his car, straightening to peel off the offending sweater and expose the flexing muscles of his bronzed and powerful torso. Her mouth ran dry and she stared, watching him pull on another sweater, black this time, before she closed the door.
She ignored her reeling senses to concentrate on what was truly important. Angel was unpredictable, she reminded herself worriedly, devious to a fault and dangerously volatile. What did he truly want from her? Why was he putting himself to so much trouble? Lunch? All of a sudden he was bringing her lunch? Merry was stunned by the concept and the planning that must have gone into that. Did Angel really want access to his daughter that badly? Did he have sufficient interest and staying power to want a long-term relationship with his daughter? And where did that leave her when she really didn’t want Angel to feature anywhere in her life?
You should’ve thought of that before you let him visit, Merry told herself in exasperation. Possibly Angel was only trying to smooth over the hostilities between them. And possibly she was a suspicious little shrew, still bitter and battered from her previous encounters with him. At the very least she ought to acknowledge that she would never ever second-guess Angel Valtinos and that he would always take her by surprise. After all, that was how he did business and how he thrived in a cut-throat world.
MERRY SHOOK HANDS with her new client, who had got into a mess with his tax returns, and promised to update him on the situation within the week. Soon she would have to try to fit in a refresher course to update her knowledge of recent legislative changes, she reflected thoughtfully, incredibly keen to think of anything other than the awareness that Angel was sliding supple as a dancer out of his car as her visitor departed.
Sybil had swooped in to take enthusiastic charge of Elyssa soon after Angel’s earlier departure. Hearing of the lunch plan, she had laughed and drily observed, ‘He’s treating you to a charm offensive. Well, if you must have a serious talk with him, it’ll be easier not to have Elyssa grizzling for her lunch and her nap in the midst of it. Phone me when you want to steal her back.’
And once again, Merry had reflected how very, very lucky she had always been to have Sybil in her life, standing by her when life