Wide green eyes blinked at her bewilderment. ‘But—’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ Daisy murmured cheerfully, determined to ignore her daughter’s response to the good news.
Kelda gritted her teeth and said nothing. It didn’t matter whether Angelo was engaged or not. It made no difference. She was outraged that Angelo could calmly inform their parents that they were getting married without even mentioning the idea to her first. It was a subtle form of blackmail and not one which would profit him. She had not the smallest intention of being married off for the sake of appearances.
It was late afternoon when Angelo strolled in. Superbly turned out in a navy suit complete with fitted waistcoat and chain, he looked dressed to kill. He also looked so gorgeous that the nurse, engaged in taking Kelda’s blood-pressure, kept on pumping and nearly cut off the blood supply to her patient’s arm. Frozen with frank admiration, she stared.
‘How are you?’ Angelo asked in his rich, slightly accented drawl.
Something wild quivered momentarily deep down inside Kelda as she collided with his clear golden eyes. Resolutely she suppressed it as the nurse took her reluctant leave. ‘Fine.’
‘We’ll get married as soon as you are out of here,’ Angelo imparted with studied casualness.
Silence...cue for applause, she wondered or was he expecting her to leap from her hospital bed and embrace his knees with gratitude.
Like someone engaged in a high-rolling poker game, Angelo’s keen gaze probed her exquisite face. ‘We’ll stick it out for about six months after the baby’s born,’ he murmured silkily. ‘Then we’ll have one or two loud disagreements. You could possibly contrive to run home to Mummy once or twice. We separate...we divorce but on a civilised basis, pleading mutual incompatibility. The family will be disappointed but two priorities will have been met. The baby will have my name and everyone will be happy. What do you think?’
CHAPTER NINE
KELDA, trapped humiliatingly between rage and disbelief, had found herself hanging helplessly on his every word. Sizzling emerald eyes rested on his starkly handsome dark features. ‘Do you really want to know what I think?’
‘I do appreciate that this has come as something of a surprise,’ Angelo fielded with teeth-clenching arrogance and the most extraordinary smile playing about his sensual mouth. ‘So, I’ll leave you to mull it over, shall I?’
With a blind, shaking hand, Kelda swiped the vase of flowers off the bedside cabinet and threw it at him with a strength born of uncontrollable rage. That he neatly sidestepped the deluge did nothing to calm her down. ‘You take your flowers, your bloody priorities and your proposal and get out!’ she shrieked at the top of her voice. ‘I didn’t want to be your mistress but I want to be your wife even less and that’s saying something! If you got down on your knees and begged for the next twenty years, I wouldn’t say yes...so go and ask Adele or Caroline or Felicity...and don’t forget Fiona! She does for conservatories what Jayne Mansfield did for sweaters!’
‘I’ll come back this evening,’ Angelo drawled, astonishingly unconcerned by the reception he had received.
‘Get out of here,’ Kelda raged at him, ‘and don’t you dare come back!’
Sobbing with a wild mixture of emotions, Kelda was crawling awkwardly about the floor, picking up flowers, when the nurse came in. It hurt, and that only made her angrier.
‘Miss Wyatt!’ the nurse gasped. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’
‘Don’t let that man in here again!’ Kelda hissed, letting herself be assisted back into bed. ‘I can’t stand him!’
‘Was it something he said?’
‘Yes...no...oh, I don’t know!’ Kelda subsided in a damp heap, exhausted by her own loss of control.
‘He couldn’t have meant it,’ the little nurse said shyly. ‘My friend told me that he spent half of last night in the chapel. He must have been praying for you.’
Angelo, praying? Kelda could not imagine Angelo praying. She sniffed, had a tissue thrust helpfully into her hand. She had been propositioned with a divorce and even though she would not have agreed to marryin
g him in any circumstances that had been particularly hurtful.
What did it matter if the baby had his name? Why should she have to consider other people’s happiness when she was so wretchedly unhappy herself? And to suggest that putting their parents through the distress of watching their fake marriage disintegrate within months was kinder than never marrying at all was ridiculous! She wanted to be open and honest. No more deception. How dared he expect her to agree to such a proposal...how dared he?
Angelo strolled in after tea as though nothing had happened. Kelda couldn’t believe her eyes. He had shed his formal suit. In an oatmeal sweater that highlighted his darkness and close-fitting black jeans that hugged his lean muscular thighs, he looked soul-destroyingly spectacular.
Excitement burned through her nerve-endings, speeding up her heartbeat and sending her pulse-rate racing. She drew in a sharp, deep breath, battling in alarm against the surging tide of dangerous physical awareness.
‘This morning I believed that I was suggesting the only kind of marriage that you would even consider,’ Angelo imparted with unalloyed cool. ‘I know how you feel about me.’
Kelda pushed unsteady hands in a raking motion through her torrent of curls. ‘Do you?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Russ Seadon was getting married to your best friend?’ he asked without warning.
She tilted her chin. ‘Would you have believed me?’