CHAPTER FIVE
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 was tough, advising and supporting her, in short being the only caring mother figure that she had ever known. Sybil had cured the hurts inflicted by her kid sister’s lack of interest in and impatience with her child and, although Merry knew her aunt had been disappointed when she became pregnant without being in a serious relationship, she had kept her disappointment to herself and had instead focused her attention on how best to help her expectant niece.
‘Lunch,’ Angel told her carelessly, carting a large luxurious hamper in one hand.
‘I’ve got a terrace out the back. Since it’s sunny, we might as well eat there,’ Merry suggested, preferring the idea of that casual setting in which she thought Angel would be less intimidating.
‘This is unexpectedly pleasant,’ Angel remarked, sprawling down with innate grace on a wrought-iron chair and taking in the pleasant view of fields and wooded hills visible beyond the hedge.
‘This was Sybil’s Christmas surprise for us,’ Merry explained. ‘Her last tenant was elderly and the garden was overgrown. Sybil hired someone to fix it up and now Elyssa will have somewhere safe to play when she’s more mobile.’
‘You’re very close to your aunt,’ Angel commented warily. ‘She doesn’t like me.’
Crystalline blue eyes collided with his in challenge. ‘What did you expect?’ she traded.
Angel had not been prepared to meet with a condemnation that bold and unapologetic and his teeth clenched, squaring his aggressive jaw, the faint dark shadow of stubble already roughening his bronzed skin accentuating the hard slant of his shapely mouth.
‘Yes, you ensured I had enough money to survive but that was that,’ Merry stated before he could remind her of the reality.
Angel sidestepped that deeply controversial issue by ignoring it. Instead he opened the hamper and stacked utensils and dishes on the table and asked where his daughter was. After all, what could he say about his treatment of Merry? The facts were the facts and he couldn’t change them. He knew he had done everything wrong and he had acknowledged that. Didn’t his honesty and his regret lighten the scales even a little? Was she expecting him to grovel on hands and knees?
‘Wow…this is some spread,’ Merry remarked uneasily as she set out the food and he uncorked the bottle of wine and filled the glasses with rich red liquid. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘From one of my hotels,’ Angel responded with the nonchalance that was the sole preserve of the very rich.
Merry placed a modest selection of savoury bites on her plate and said tensely, ‘What did you want to discuss?’
‘Our future,’ Angel delivered succinctly while Tiger sat at his feet with little round pleading eyes pinned to the meat on his fork.
‘Nobody can foretell the future,’ Merry objected.
‘I can where we’re concerned,’ Angel assured her, every liquid syllable cool as ice. ‘Either we spend at least the next ten years fighting it out over Elyssa in court or…we get married and share her.’
Merry studied him over the top of her wine glass with steadily widening pale blue eyes, and then gulped in more wine than she intended and coughed and spluttered in the most embarrassing manner as she struggled to get a grip on her wildly fluctuating emotions. First he had frightened the life out of her by mentioning a court battle over her beloved daughter, and then he’d sent her spinning with a suggestion she had never dreamt that she would hear from his lips.