The Secret Valtinos Baby (Vows for Billionaires 1)

‘Tell it like it is,’ Angel urged sibilantly.

Her smooth brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You still want me as much as I want you,’ he breathed huskily, sipping his coffee as if he were merely making casual conversation.

‘I don’t want to have that sort of discussion with you,’ Merry told him curtly, colour burnishing her cheeks as she wondered if he really could tell that easily that she was still vulnerable around him. Not that she would do anything about it or let him do anything about it, she reasoned with pride. Attraction was nothing more than a hormonal trick and, in her case, a very dangerous misdirection.

‘Avoid? Deny?’ Angel derided, his beautiful wilful mouth curling, his smouldering gaze enhanced by unfairly long black lashes welded to her fast-reddening face. ‘What’s the point?’

‘If you continue this I’m going to ask you to leave,’ Merry warned thinly.

And genuine amusement engulfed Angel and laughter lit up his lean, dark features. ‘I’m not about to pounce on you with our daughter watching! Believe me, while she’s around, you’re safe,’ he assured her smoothly.

Inexplicably that little exchange made Merry feel foolish and rather as though she had ended up with egg on her face, which was burning like a furnace. Even now, many months after the event, she couldn’t laugh about what had happened between them. Looking back, it was as if blinding sunlight overlaid and blurred the explosive passion she couldn’t begin to explain and never wanted to experience again. Unfortunately for her, her body had a different ambition. One glimpse of Angel’s darkly handsome face and long, sleek, muscular frame and she was as tense as a bowstring, caught between forbidden pleasure at his sheer physical beauty and angry self-loathing at her susceptibility to it.

‘I brought lunch with me,’ Angel revealed, startling her.

Her eyes widened. ‘But I have a client due.’

‘I’ll return in an hour. You know we need to talk about Elyssa and how we move on from here,’ Angel pointed out as if it were the most reasonable and natural thing in the world when in truth they had never ever talked about anything.

‘Yes…yes, of course,’ she muttered uneasily, because she could see that a talk made sense and it was surely better to get it all over in one go and in one day, she told herself soothingly. ‘I should be free in an hour, but—’

‘I’ll make it an hour and a half,’ Angel cut in decisively as he moved towards the door.

Merry skimmed his arm with an uncertain finger to attract his attention. ‘I’m afraid Elyssa has…er…stained your sweater,’ she told him awkwardly.

His amused grin flashed perfect white teeth and enhanced the sculpted fullness of his wide, sensual mouth. ‘It’s not a problem. I brought a change of clothes with me.’

‘My goodness, you were organised,’ she mumbled in surprise as he strode down the path and leant down into his car, straightening to peel off the offending sweater and expose the flexing muscles of his bronzed and powerful torso. Her mouth ran dry and she stared, watching him pull on another sweater, black this time, before she closed the door.

She ignored her reeling senses to concentrate on what was truly important. Angel was unpredictable, she reminded herself worriedly, devious to a fault and dangerously volatile. What did he truly want from her? Why was he putting himself to so much trouble? Lunch? All of a sudden he was bringing her lunch? Merry was stunned by the concept and the planning that must have gone into that. Did Angel really want access to his daughter that badly? Did he have sufficient interest and staying power to want a long-term relationship with his daughter? And where did that leave her when she really didn’t want Angel to feature anywhere in her life?

You should’ve thought of that before you let him visit, Merry told herself in exasperation. Possibly Angel was only trying to smooth over the hostilities between them. And possibly she was a suspicious little shrew, still bitter and battered from her previous encounters with him. At the very least she ought to acknowledge that she would never ever second-guess Angel Valtinos and that he would always take her by surprise. After all, that was how he did business and how he thrived in a cut-throat world.