On the threshold, Merry paused to admire the magnificent bedroom. An opulent seating area took up one corner of the vast room. Various doors led off to bathroom facilities and a large and beautifully fitted dressing room where staff were already engaged in unpacking their cases. A table sat beside patio doors that led out onto a terrace overlooking a fabulous infinity swimming pool lit with underwater lights. In the centre of the room a giant bed fit for Cleopatra and draped in spicy Mediterranean colours sat on elaborate gilded feet. Her expressive face warmed, her pulses humming beneath her calm surface because she ached for him, and that awareness of her own hunger embarrassed her as nothing else could because she was mortifyingly conscious that she had no control around Angel.
‘Let’s eat,’ Angel suggested lazily.
A slender figure clad in loose linen trousers and an emerald-green top with ties, Merry took a seat. She had dressed comfortably for the flight and had marvelled that, even in designer jeans and a black shirt, Angel could still look far more sleek and sophisticated than she did. No matter what he wore, he had that knack, if there was such a thing, of always looking classy and exclusive.
Wine was poured, the first course delivered. It was all food calculated to tempt the appetite, nothing heavy or over spiced and, because she hadn’t eaten much at the wedding, Merry ate hungrily. During the main course, she heard splashing from the direction of the pool and then a sudden bout of high-pitched giggling. She began awkwardly to twist her head around to look outside.
‘Diavole!’ Angel swore with a sudden frown, flying upright to thrust open the doors onto the terrace.
Merry rose to her feet more slowly and followed him to see what had jerked him out of his seat as though rudely yanked up by invisible steel wires. She was very much taken aback to discover that the source of the noise was her mother-in-law and her boyfriend, both of whom appeared to be cavorting naked in the pool. She blinked in disbelief while Angel addressed the pair in angry Greek. Primo reacted first, hauling himself hurriedly out of the water and yanking a towel off a lounger to wind it round his waist. Angelina hissed back at her son in furious Greek before leaving the pool by the steps, stark naked and evidently quite unconcerned by that reality. Her companion strode forward to toss her a robe, his discomfiture at the interruption unhidden. Angel’s mother, however, took her time about covering up, her tempestuous fury at Angel’s intrusion fuelling a wealth of outraged objections.
Merry swallowed hard on her growing embarrassment while Angel stood his ground, his dark deep voice sardonic and clipped with derision as he switched to English. ‘You will not use this pool while I, my wife or my daughter are in residence.’
‘This is my home!’ Angelina proclaimed. ‘You have no right to make a demand like that!’
‘This house belongs to me and there are now rules to be observed,’ Angel sliced back harshly. ‘If you cannot respect those rules, find somewhere else to stay on the island.’
And with that final ringing threat, Angel swung back and pressed a hand to Merry’s shoulder to guide her firmly back indoors. His mother ranted back at him in Greek and he ignored the fact, ramming shut the doors again and returning to their interrupted meal.
Unnerved by what she had witnessed, Merry dropped heavily back into her chair, her face hot with unease. ‘I think your mother’s had too much to drink.’
Angel shot her a grim glance. ‘Don’t make excuses for her. I should have told her that she was no longer welcome here before we married. Her conduct is inappropriate and I refuse to have you or Elyssa subjected to her behaviour in what is now your home.’
Merry sipped at her wine, stunned by the display she had witnessed and wondering helplessly what it had been like for him to grow up with so avant-garde a mother. Angelina seemed to have no boundaries, no concept of what was acceptable. It must have been a nightmare to grow up in the care of so self-indulgent a woman. For the first time she understood why Angel was so close to his father: he only had one parent, he had only ever had one parent. Parenting had been something that Angelina Valtinos had probably never done and she understood why Angel had been placed in a boarding school at a very young age.