The reception was being held at a five-star exclusive city hotel. Merry met her mother-in-law for the first time over the pre-dinner drinks. By then Angelina Valtinos had a young and very handsome Italian man on her arm, whom she airily introduced as Primo. She said very little, asked nothing and virtually ignored her son, as though she blamed him for the necessity of her having to attend his wedding.
‘She’s even worse in person than I expected,’ Sybil hissed in a tone most unlike her.
‘Shush…time will tell,’ Merry said with a shrug.
‘I wish that wretched man would take a hint,’ Sybil complained as Charles Russell hurried forward with a keen smile to escort her aunt to their seats at the top table.
Merry tried not to laugh, having quickly grasped that Angel’s father had one of those drivingly energetic and assured natures that steamrollered across Sybil’s polite lack of interest without even noticing it. But then she had equally quickly realised that she liked her father-in-law for his unquestioning acceptance of their sudden marriage. His enthusiastic response to Elyssa had also spelled out the message that he was one of those men who absolutely adored children. He exuded all the warmth and welcome that his ex-wife, Angelina, conspicuously lacked.
Angel’s brother, Prince Vitale, drifted over to exchange a few words. He was very smooth, very sophisticated and civil, but Merry was utterly intimidated by him. From the moment Angel had explained that his half-brother was of royal birth and the heir to the throne of a small, fabulously rich European country, Merry had been nervous of meeting him.
A slender blonde grasped Merry’s hand and, looking up at the taller woman, Merry froze in consternation. Recognition was instant: it was the same blonde she had twice seen in Angel’s company, a slender, leggy young woman in her early thirties with sparkling brown eyes and an easy, confident smile.
‘Merry…allow me to introduce Roula Paulides, one of my oldest friends,’ Angel proffered warmly.
With difficulty, Merry flashed a smile onto her stiff lips, her colour rising because she was mortified by her instant stiffening defensiveness with the other woman. An old friend, she should’ve thought of that possibility, she scolded herself. That more than anything else explained Angel’s enduring relationship with the beautiful blonde. Unfortunately, Roula Paulides was stunning and very much Angel’s type. Even worse and mortifyingly, she was the same woman who had been lunching with Angel on the dreadful dark day when Merry had had to tell him that she was pregnant.
It was only when Sally retrieved Elyssa to whisk her upstairs for a nap that Angel’s mother finally approached Merry. A thin smile on her face, she said, ‘Angel really should have warned me that his bride already had a child.’
‘He should’ve done,’ Merry agreed mildly.
‘Your daughter is very young. Who is her father?’ Angelina demanded with a ringing clarity that encouraged several heads to turn in their direction. ‘I hope you are aware that she cannot make use of the Valtinos name.’
‘I think you’ll find you’re wrong about that,’ Sybil declared as she strolled over to join her niece with a protective gleam in her gaze. ‘Elyssa is a Valtinos too.’
Angel’s mother stiffened, her eyes widening, her rosebud mouth tightening with disbelief. ‘My son has a child with you?’ she gasped, stricken. ‘That can’t be true!’
‘It is,’ Merry cut in hurriedly, keen to bring the fraught conversation to an end.
‘He should’ve married Roula… I always thought that if he married anyone, it would be Roula,’ Angelina Valtinos volunteered in a tone of bitter complaint.
‘Well, tact isn’t one of her skills,’ Sybil remarked ruefully when they were alone again. ‘Who’s Roula? Or don’t you know?’
Merry felt humiliated by the tense little scene and her mother-in-law’s closing comment about Roula Paulides. Roula, evidently, was something more than a harmless old friend, she gathered unhappily.
Meanwhile, shaken by what she had learned and very flushed, Angelina stalked to the end of the table to approach her son, who was talking to Vitale. A clearly hostile and brief dialogue took place between mother and son before the older woman careened angrily away again to snatch a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray and drop down into her chair.