Angel of Darkness

Absently she winced at the clatter Russ was making in her kitchen and then her furrowed brow cleared. The belief that she had another man in her life would most anger Angelo...and here she was with another man staying under her very roof...

‘You want me to what?’ Russ echoed dazedly ten minutes later.

Kelda’s cheeks were hot with growing embarrassment. ‘Forget it!’ she urged hurriedly. ‘It was a stupid idea—’

Suddenly, Russ laughed. ‘This guy won’t take no for an answer...is that it?’

Kelda nodded. ‘All I want you to do is look at home here, as if you’re waiting up for me,’ she spelt out awkwardly.

‘He’s not likely to get violent, is he?’ Russ checked.

She shook her head and prayed that she was right.

Russ grinned on his way out of the door with her spare key. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time. I think I’m going to enjoy this!’

Kelda got dressed, selecting a clinging trouser-suit in shocking pink. It had strategic and daring cut-outs and she wore it like a suit of armour, calculated to repel. Angelo’s dainty little blonde women were invariably given to conservative wardrobes.

‘You look like a trapeze artist. It suits you.’ Infuriatingly, Angelo let his lustrous dark eyes travel over her with offensive and blazingly confident familiarity.

Kelda tossed the emerald necklace carelessly into the glove compartment of his Ferrari.

‘Is that some sort of a statement?’ Angelo drawled, lazily unconcerned by the gesture.

‘I don’t want it.’

‘It belongs to you now. I gave it to you.’

Her breath quickened, her pulse-rate accelerating as her tension increased. ‘But I don’t want anything from you,’ she stressed, striving to keep her voice level and cool.

‘Perhaps this is not a good time to tell you that I am in the process of buying your apartment.’

Her head whipped round in shock. ‘Too late. You’ve missed the boat!’ she returned sharply. ‘I agreed the sale today.’

‘With whom?’

‘A Swiss company.’

‘I own the company.’

The soft assertion dragged a soft sound of incredulity from her throat. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. ‘You own it?’

‘Who else would pay over the odds to secure your ownership?’ Angelo queried drily. ‘I’ll sign it back to you as soon as the sale is complete—’

‘Why would you want to buy my apartment for me?’ Kelda demanded, anger and a kind of threatened horror coalescing out of her shock.

‘I told you in Italy that I would pick up all the bills,’ Angelo reminded her smoothly. ‘And naturally that includes securing your home for your occupancy. I’ll sort out all your financial problems. I will clear your credit cards, settle any outstanding debts and make arrangements for an allowance to be paid into your account.’

In a daze, she listened while he listed his intentions. A dark mist of humiliation enveloped her. Her fair skin reddened in a painful flush. And then anger stirred out of her disbelief. ‘I’m not a fixture you can buy along with my apartment!’ she asserted rawly. ‘I am not for sale!’

‘I didn’t say that you were,’ Angelo murmured with calm emphasis. ‘But we made an agreement in Italy—’

‘There was no agreement!’ Kelda blitzed back at him.

‘Shall we say that when you allowed me access to that exquisite body I rather took agreement for granted.’

The flush drained away, leaving her pale. She wanted very badly to claw at him for his ruthless determination to portray her as greedy, immoral and sexually available. She had never hated him as much as she did in that moment, could not comprehend how that hatred had failed to kill all desire for him...yet, it had failed quite spectacularly. All of a sudden, she was very grateful that if Angelo came back to her apartment tonight he would be greeted by Russ. Even Angelo would not be able to disregard so blatant a rejection!

Even so, she found that she was still trembling with the sheer force of her emotions. ‘I told you that it was over in Italy...I made that crystal-clear,’ she told him tightly, staring rigidly out of the windscreen. ‘It was a mistake I don’t intend to repeat and I never at any stage had any intention of becoming your mistress. So you’ve just bought yourself an empty apartment, Angelo. I will be moving out within the month.’