Angel of Darkness

‘I’m sorry. I have a dreadful headache.’ Kelda stood up, her face a mask of disdain. ‘You can call a cab for me if you like—’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘Kelda...’

She was immovable. Catch her falling for a trick like that? No way would she give Angelo the opportunity to put her down in front of an audience. He excelled in that direction. Time was when she wouldn’t have had the wit to forestall him...time was when she would have waded in with both fists metaphorically flying, unconcerned by the presence of others. Suddenly she was unbelievably grateful to be a mature twenty-four, rather than an insecure, dreadfully unhappy teenager, trying to act older than she was.

Jeff was furious. She was wryly amused at the way the prospect of making an influential contact had cleared his wits and turned him off his previous insistence that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Insisting that he go and find his friends, she went home alone.

Switching on the lights in the lounge, she kicked off her shoes and switched on her answering machine. Nothing. Once there would have been at least a couple of messages. Not now...she was yesterday’s news. The Iceberg, who drove innocent married men to suicide. Her apartment would sell for far less than she had paid for it. Her bank balance was at an all-time low. She had had insurance for accident or injury but nothing to cover what amounted to being virtually unemployable. The media had turned her into a figure of hate. There had been plenty of pictures of Danny’s tear-stained, plain little wife. The wife that Kelda had not even known existed, living in the country as she did with their two young children while Danny had lived the life of a free and easy single man in the city during the week.

He had actually told Kelda that he went home most weekends to his elderly parents! With a sudden choked sound between a laugh and a sob, Kelda covered her working face with two unsteady hands. How could she have been so stupid? And how could Danny have told so many lies? For the money, she thought cynically. The true story would have made surpassingly unexciting reading. Danny had made her look like a vicious bitch, who used men up like tissues and threw them away when she got bored. And the truth...really the truth was far more pathetic, she reflected.

Here she was all dressed up in the proverbial sexy little black dress which showed off her perfect curves and endless legs and what was she, she asked herself painfully as she stared at her reflection in one of the mirrored wardrobes in her bedroom. A complete fraud! Less of a woman certainly than Danny’s poor little wife, who loved him and had borne his children and who had apparently been willing to forgive and forget from the instant he landed in that hospital bed!

What did it feel like to love like that? She couldn’t imagine it...she had never loved, only once experienced the devastation of desire...and that she never ever allowed herself to remember. It had hurt so much and so badly; she had been savaged by her own vulnerability. Deep down inside the pain was still there like an indoor alarm system. A man put his arms around her and if she felt anything at all, the alarm went off. If he makes me want him...what then? And she would go cold, inside and out.

The intercom buzzed beside the front door. It was two in the morning. With a crease between her brows, she pressed the button.

‘Angelo here...’

Kelda’s stomach clenched fearfully. She leapt back a step.

‘Go away!’ she shouted.

She heard muffled speech as if he had turned to speak to someone else.

‘Calm down, cara,’ Angelo purred.

Her lashes blinking in bemusement at the smooth endearment, Kelda let rip again, something terrifyingly akin to hysteria audible even to herself in her shrieked response. ‘Leave me alone!’

She walked away from the front door, breathing fast, and backed into the lounge where she sat down on the sofa and wrapped both arms round herself tightly. She had had a lousy evening, a lousy week, a lousy month come to that. She was not in the mood for a fight with Angelo. Dimly she had known that it would come, but she hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so soon.

It was with utter disbelief that she heard her front door open. She lurched bolt upright in genuine fear, cursing herself for not using the chain.

‘Do you think I should call a doctor, Mr Rossetti?’ a vaguely familiar male voice enquired. It was the night security guard.

‘No...I don’t think that will be necessary now that I am here. Thank you again.’

‘It’s a pleasure to be of service, Mr Rossetti.’

She heard the crackle of money changing hands and she still couldn’t move or react. She couldn’t believe that Angelo had somehow contrived to break into her very secure apartment with the assistance of the guard.

Angelo appeared in the doorway.

‘If you don’t g-get out, I’ll call the police!’ Kelda screeched at him.

CHAPTER TWO

KELDA had blocked Angelo out in the foyer of the nightclub. She had seen him and yet she hadn’t seen him. Her eyes had skipped off him again double quick, discarding the imagery as if it burned. And it did...it did. Angelo was drop-dead gorgeous.

‘My, but you’re pretty,’ she had trilled the very first time she met him at the age of thirteen, derisively scanning the near-classic perfection of his golden features and the lean, lithe perfectly balanced body that went with it. Amazingly, Tomaso had laughed. Angelo hadn’t.

And then as now, Kelda had somehow found herself still staring, after the laughter had died away. He had the slashing cheekbones of a Tartar prince, long-lashed, brilliant dark eyes and a strong aristocratic nose. The whole effect was sexually devastating. She hadn’t known what made him so disturbing when she was thirteen...but she did now.

Angelo was sinfully, scorchingly sexy. It hit the unwary like a forcefield of raw energy. The very air seemed to sizzle round Angelo and when you reached a certain age, she acknowledged, that certain age when you often embarrassed yourself with your own thoughts, you would look at a male like Angelo and find yourself quite unable to avoid wondering what he was like in bed...

A little voice inside Kelda’s head cruelly reminded her that she was not entirely unaware of what Angelo was like in bed...and instantaneously a wave of mortified heat engulfed her translucent skin. It was hardly surprising that such painful imagery should visit her now. This was the first time they had stood face to face since that ghastly, unforgettable night over six years ago.

‘The police,’ Angelo reminded her with satire. ‘Weren’t you about to call them? Or have you decided that you really can’t afford the publicity?’