And no other men for you either.
He pointed this out with pleasure in his reply.
That wasn’t a problem for Merry, who was stunned that he was replying to her so quickly. In truth, she had never ever wanted anyone as much as she wanted Angel Valtinos. All thoughts of kindly and dependable Fergus flew from her mind. She didn’t like the fact and certainly wasn’t proud of it. Indeed, she wouldn’t have admitted it even if Angel slow-roasted her over an open fire but it was, indisputably, the secret reality she lived with.
‘Who are you texting?’ his brother demanded.
‘My daughter’s mother.’ Angel shot his sibling a triumphant glance. ‘I believe that you will be standing up at my wedding for me as soon as I can get it arranged.’
Vitale frowned. ‘I thought you crashed and burned?’
‘Obviously not,’ Angel savoured, still texting, keener yet to get a clear response.
Exclusivity approved. Are you agreeing to marry me?
* * *
Merry froze, suddenly shocked back to real life and questioning what she was doing. What was she doing? Raging, burning jealousy had almost eaten her alive when she saw that blonde with him again.
We’d have to talk about that.
I’m a doer, not a talker. You have to give me a chance.
But he’d had his chance with her and wrecked it, Merry reminded herself feverishly. He didn’t do feelings or proper relationships outside his own family circle. Yet there was something curiously and temptingly seductive about proud, arrogant Angel asking her to give him another chance.
She decided to give him a warning.
One LAST chance.
* * *
YES! WE HAVE A DEAL!
Angel texted back with amusement and an intense sense of achievement.
He had won. He had gained his daughter, the precious chance to bring Elyssa into his life instead of losing her. In addition, he would be gaining a wife, a very unusual wife, who didn’t want his money. Another man would have celebrated that reality but, when it came to women, Angel was always suspicious, always looking out for hidden motives and secret objectives. Women were complicated, which was why he never got involved and never dipped below the shallow surface with his lovers…and Merry was infinitely more complicated than the kind of women he was familiar with.
Could such a marriage work?
Only time would tell, he reflected with uncharacteristic gravity. No other women, he pondered abstractedly. Well, he hadn’t been prepared for that demand, he acknowledged ruefully, having proposed marriage while intending the union as more of a convenient parental partnership than anything more personal. After all, he knew several couples who contrived to lead separate lives below the same roof while remaining safely married. They stayed together for the sake of their children or to protect their wealth from the damage of divorce, but nothing more emotional was involved.
In reality, Angel had never seen anything positive about the marital state. The official Valtinos outlook on marriage was that it was generally disastrous and extremely expensive. His own mother’s infidelity had ensured that his parents had parted by the time he was four years old. His grandparents had enjoyed an equally calamitous union while shunning divorce in favour of living in separate wings of the same house. Nor was Angel’s attitude softened by the number of cheating spouses he had met over the years. In his early twenties, Angel had automatically assumed that he would never marry.
But, self-evidently, Merry had a very different take on marriage and parenthood, a much more conventional take than a cynical and distrustful Valtinos. Here she was demanding fidelity upfront as though it was the very bedrock of stability. And maybe it was, Angel conceded dimly, reflecting on the constant turmoil caused by his mother’s rampant promiscuity. He thought equally hard about the little scene of apparent domestic contentment he had glimpsed at his cousin’s house, where a husband rushed into his home to greet a wife and children whom he obviously valued and missed. That glimpse had provided Angel with a disturbing vision of another world that had never been visible to him before, a much more personalised and intimate version of marriage.
And Merry, it seemed, had chosen to view his suggestion of marriage as being personal, very personal, rather than practical as he had envisioned. Beneath his brother’s exasperated gaze, Angel lounged back in his dining chair, his meal untouched, and for the first time in his life smiled with slashing brilliance at the prospect of acquiring a wife and a wedding ring…