Shock banging through her blitzed brain, Merry struggled to relocate her reasoning powers. Did she simply accept that the blonde was telling her the truth? Why would Roula lie about such a relationship? Could she simply be trying to cause trouble in Merry’s marriage? But what would be the point of that unless she was already engaged in an affair with Angel with something to gain from his marriage breaking down?
And then, according to Roula, Angel had not been with her recently? Or simply since his marriage? Merry’s head was spinning. She wanted to pack her bags, gather up her daughter and run back to the UK to establish a sane and normal life where a blonde beauty did not calmly stroll into her home one morning to announce that she was in love with Merry’s husband and keen to continue having hassle-free sex with him.
Stark pain sliced through Merry, cutting through the numbness of shock. She had been happy, she registered wretchedly, hopelessly, helplessly happy with Angel and their marriage as it was. She had seen nothing to question, nothing to rouse her suspicions. She had believed his promise of fidelity, believed that they had a future, but if she believed Roula her future with Angel could only be a deceitful and fragile farce because she would never ever accept him betraying her with another woman. Nor would she ever share him.
‘Well, you’ve said your piece. Now I think you should leave,’ Merry told Roula quietly, her self-discipline absolute because wild horses could not have dredged a more vulnerable reaction from her.
‘I do hope I haven’t upset you,’ the Greek woman said unconvincingly. ‘I suspected you didn’t know and that wasn’t right.’
As far as Merry was concerned there was nothing right about Roula’s attitude to either Angel or his marriage or even his wife. Roula had developed her own convictions based on what she wanted. Roula, it seemed, lived to please Angel. Merry loved Angel but she had never been blind to his flaws. Had he discounted his intimate relationship with Roula in the same way as he had once ignored the reality that his pregnant former employee might need more than financial support from him?
It would have been uncomfortable for Angel to overcome his own feelings back then and offer Merry his support, and he had been unable to force himself to go that extra mile for her benefit. In the same way being honest about his relationship with Roula would have put paid to any hope of Merry marrying him and sharing their daughter. Was that why he had kept quiet? Or was it possible that he believed the relationship with Roula was at an end? But then wouldn’t Roula know that? Had Angel lied to Merry to get her to the altar? Was he that ruthless?
Oh, yes, a little voice chimed inside her head.
CHAPTER NINE
‘MRS VALTINOS INSISTED that she had to make an immediate departure from the airport,’ Angel’s driver repeated uneasily. ‘I did tell her that you were expecting her to join you for lunch before she left London but she said—’
‘That she didn’t have time,’ Angel slotted in flatly.
‘I took her to Foxcote Hall at two and then an hour later dropped her off at her aunt’s house. She said she’d call when she needed to be picked up again,’ the older man completed.
Angel breathed in slow and deep. Something was wrong. His wife had flown back to London with their daughter and mounds of luggage even though she had only been expecting to remain in the UK for forty-eight hours at most. She had blown him off for lunch. She wasn’t answering his calls or his texts. Such behaviour was unlike her. Merry wasn’t moody or facetious and she didn’t play games. If something had annoyed her, she was more likely to speak up straight away. His growing bewilderment was starting to give way to righteous anger and an amount of unfamiliar apprehension that only enraged him more.
What could possibly have happened between his departure and her arrival in London? Why the mounds of luggage? Wasn’t she planning to return to Greece? Was it possible that she was leaving him and taking their daughter with her? But why would she do that? He had checked with the staff on Palos. Merry had had only one visitor and that was Roula, and when he had phoned Roula she had insisted that Merry had been perfectly friendly and relaxed with her. His lean brown hands knotting into fists, his tension pronounced, Angel resolved to be waiting at Foxcote when Merry got back.