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 eat in our room,’ Angel told her lazily. ‘I’m glad to be home. You’ll love it here. Midsummer it can be unbearably hot but in June Palos is lush with growth and the air is fresh.’
‘I didn’t realise that you were so attached to your home,’ Merry confided, running her attention over the display of impressive paintings in the corridor.
‘Palos has been the Valtinos base for generations,’ Angel told her. ‘The original house was demolished and rebuilt by my grandfather. He fancied himself as something of an architect but his design ambitions were thwarted when he and my grandmother split up and she refused to move out. His house plan was then divided in two, one half for him, the other half for her and it’s still like that. Some day I hope to turn it back into one house.’
Merry was frowning. ‘Your grandparents divorced?’
‘No, neither of them wanted a divorce, but after my mother’s birth they separated. He was an incorrigible Romeo and she couldn’t live with him,’ Angel admitted as carved wooden doors were spread back at the end of the corridor. ‘I never knew either of them. My grandfather didn’t marry until he was almost sixty and my grandmother was in her forties when my mother was born. They died before my parents married.’
On the threshold, Merry paused to admire the magnificent bedroom. An opulent seating area took up one corner of the vast room. Various doors led off to bathroom facilities and a large and beautifully fitted dressing room where staff were already engaged in unpacking their cases. A table sat beside patio doors that led out onto a terrace overlooking a fabulous infinity swimming pool lit with underwater lights. In the centre of the room a giant bed fit for Cleopatra and draped in spicy Mediterranean colours sat on elaborate gilded feet. Her expressive face warmed, her pulses humming beneath her calm surface because she ached for him, and that awareness of her own hunger embarrassed her as nothing else could because she was mortifyingly conscious that she had no control around Angel.
‘Let’s eat,’ Angel suggested lazily.
A slender figure clad in loose linen trousers and an emerald-green top with ties, Merry took a seat. She had dressed comfortably for the flight and had marvelled that, even in designer jeans and a black shirt, Angel could still look far more sleek and sophisticated than she did. No matter what he wore, he had that knack, if there was such a thing, of always looking classy and exclusive.
Wine was poured, the first course delivered. It was all food calculated to tempt the appetite, nothing heavy or over spiced and, because she hadn’t eaten much at the wedding, Merry ate hungrily. During the main course, she heard splashing from the direction of the pool and then a sudden bout of high-pitched giggling. She began awkwardly to twist her head around to look outside.
‘Diavole!’ Angel swore with a sudden frown, flying upright to thrust open the doors onto the terrace.
Merry rose to her feet more slowly and followed him to see what had jerked him out of his seat as though rudely yanked up by invisible steel wires. She was very much taken aback to discover that the source of the noise was her mother-in-law and her boyfriend, both of whom appeared to be cavorting naked in the pool. She blinked in disbelief while Angel addressed the pair in angry Greek. Primo reacted first, hauling himself hurriedly out of the water and yanking a towel off a lounger to wind it round his waist. Angelina hissed back at her son in furious Greek before leaving the pool by the steps, stark naked and evidently quite unconcerned by that reality. Her companion strode forward to toss her a robe, his discomfiture at the interruption unhidden. Angel’s mother, however, took her time about covering up, her tempestuous fury at Angel’s intrusion fuelling a wealth of outraged objections.
Merry swallowed hard on her growing embarrassment while Angel stood his ground, his dark deep voice sardonic and clipped with derision as he switched to English. ‘You will not use this pool while I, my wife or my daughter are in residence.’
‘This is my home!’ Angelina proclaimed. ‘You have no right to make a demand like that!’
‘This house belongs to me and there are now rules to be observed,’ Angel sliced back harshly. ‘If you cannot respect those rules, find somewhere else to stay on the island.’
And with that final ringing threat, Angel swung back and pressed a hand to Merry’s shoulder to guide her firmly back indoors. His mother ranted back at him in Greek and he ignored the fact, ramming shut the doors again and returning to their interrupted meal.
Unnerved by what she had witnessed, Merry dropped heavily back into her chair, her face hot with unease. ‘I think your mother’s had too much to drink.’
Angel shot her a grim glance. ‘Don’t make excuses for her. I should have told her that she was no longer welcome here before we married. Her conduct is inappropriate and I refuse to have you or Elyssa subjected to her behaviour in what is now your home.’
Merry sipped at her wine, stunned by the display she had witnessed and wondering helplessly what it had been like for him to grow up with so avant-garde a mother. Angelina seemed to have no boundaries, no concept of what was acceptable. It must have been a nightmare to grow up in the care of so self-indulgent a woman. For the first time she understood why Angel was so close to his father: he only had one parent, he had only ever had one parent. Parenting had been something that Angelina Valtinos had probably never done and she understood why Angel had been placed in a boarding school at a very young age.
As silence reclaimed the pool beyond the terrace, Angel audibly expelled his breath, the fierce tension in his lean, darkly handsome features and the set of his wide shoulders fading. He was determined that Merry would not be embarrassed by his mother’s attention-grabbing tactics. Merry was too prim to comfortably cope with the scenes his mother liked to throw. In any case, his wife was entitled to the older woman’s respect. Angelina could dislike her all she wished but, ultimately, she had to accept that her son’s wife was the new mistress of the house and had the right to expect certain standards of behaviour.
‘How is it that the family home belongs to you and not to your mother?’ Merry asked curiously.
‘My grandmother survived my grandfather by several months. She was never able to control her daughter and once she realised that Angelina was pregnant, she left this house to my mother’s descendants rather than to her,’ he advanced.
Merry frowned. ‘That’s kind of sad.’
‘Don’t feel sorry for Angelina. My grandfather adored her and endowed her with a massive trust fund. All her life she has done exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of how it harms or affects others. At some stage, there’s got to be a price to pay for that,’ Angel declared with dry finality. ‘I have long wished that my mother would buy her own property where she could do as she likes without involving me.’
‘Why