Angel of Darkness

‘Obviously you did.’

‘I’m stuck in here while you’re out there enjoying yourself,’ Kelda slung mutinously. ‘That makes me sick!’

‘My visit upset you so much yesterday, I decided to give you some space,’ Angelo revealed flatly.

‘Where were you tonight?’ She had to know. She couldn’t get past that raging need to know where he had been and who he had been with.

‘At a charity dinner, full of long overblown speeches and pompous old windbags.’

Unexpectedly, she laughed. She told him about the mistake he had made with the lingerie. It was almost the first time she had ever seen Angelo look embarrassed. Suddenly uneasy with the sense of intimacy she was experiencing, she fell silent.

‘You’re doing it again...shutting me out,’ he breathed with a raw edge to his voice. ‘I hate it when you do that.’

‘I keep on waiting for you to turn on me again.’ She had not meant to be that honest but somehow the admission slid out.

He tensed, paled, dark eyes veiling as he paced restively across the room. ‘It’s taken me a long time but believe me...I’ve changed. Unfortunately for you, my misconceptions about your temperament were set in concrete that night six years ago—’

Kelda froze in dismay. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘You had to almost die before I could be forced

into facing the truth,’ Angelo vented harshly. ‘I was afraid of finding myself in a relationship which I couldn’t control. I know what that did to my father. I was determined that no woman would do to me what my mother did to him. It was easier to walk away from you than stay...’

Kelda tore her eyes from his clenched profile, knowing what that confession of vulnerability must have cost him.

‘Six years ago, I lost control,’ he admitted fiercely. ‘I overreacted that night. I was hardly an unprejudiced bystander. Even had you been making love with that boy, you would only have been doing what teenagers do, given the opportunity. No, I was brutal with you because I wanted you for myself and the sight of you with that boy drove me crazy—’

‘Angelo—’

He cut in on her. ‘I was almost twenty-six and you were eighteen. It was almost a year since I had seen you. I had deliberately stayed away. And I came home with such high hopes—’

‘What kind of hopes?’ She was remembering the way he had looked at her before that ghastly party, his unfamiliar warmth...the compliment.

‘I thought that finally I might have a chance with you. Until then, I had had to repress everything I felt around you. Telling myself that I would marry you didn’t make me any less ashamed of feeling like that. If you hadn’t been so naïve, you would have guessed why I never, ever touched you in any way. You would have questioned the extent of my interest in your education and the amount of freedom you were allowed.’

‘I didn’t,’ she whispered dazedly.

‘I have a jealous, possessive streak a mile wide,’ Angelo admitted grimly. ‘Every time you went out of the door, I went through hell. I knew you ought to have all the normal adolescent experiences but I didn’t want you to have them. That’s why I had to leave for that year but that night, seeing you with that boy...I went off at the deep end. And now I have to live with the knowledge that you were almost raped. I not only added to your distress by my accusations but also gave way to my own animal instincts in a way which I deeply regret.’

Jealousy had been the source of his incomprehension that night. She saw that now so clearly. Almost immediately her memories of those fevered minutes in his arms were curiously cleansed of all humiliation and embarrassment. If she had been out of control, Angelo had been as well.

‘I went to your room to make you listen to the truth, but somehow...’ Kelda hesitated awkwardly.

‘I opened my eyes and you were there. I thought you had come to me. I didn’t remember what had happened earlier until afterwards...and then I believed that you had guessed how I felt and were taunting me,’ he breathed savagely. ‘But I should never have touched you. I had no excuse.’

Kelda plucked at the sheet. ‘I enjoyed it. That devastated me.’

‘Do you still feel that I’m about to turn on you?’

She didn’t. But she didn’t say so. Angelo had changed and she could not understand or even quite accept that Angelo could so suddenly revise his opinion of her. He had given her a completely clean sheet. A mean, jealous streak a mile wide, yes, well, she pondered helplessly, he hadn’t been exaggerating on that count. She discovered that she had forgiven him for that night six years ago and that shook her.

But there was something so incredibly appealing about his acknowledgement about how he had felt about her then. True, it had only been rampant sexual desire but he had not intended to take advantage of her innocence. And the more he reminded her of that physical obsession, the more secretively secure she felt. In one sense, Angelo belonged to her. For more than six years, Angelo had continued to desire her. And for more than six years, Angelo, being Angelo, must have fought that hunger to the last ditch...yet still it persisted.

‘I won’t misjudge you again. I can safely promise you that.’ Strong resolve hardened his dark features. ‘You say you won’t marry me. But have you thought about the future? Whether you like it or not, we’ll have a child we have to share within a few weeks...’

Kelda swallowed with difficulty. ‘Share?’

‘Naturally I will expect to spend time with our child. Even the law would grant me visitation rights, but I doubt if either one of us wants or sees the need for legal intervention,’ Angelo stated softly. ‘The very existence of that child means that I will be a part of your life for years to come.’