Lynne Graham: Angel Of Darkness

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.

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?’

As Kelda’s teeth gritted, she made a swift recovery from her unfortunate loss of concentration. ‘How did you persuade the guard to let you in here?

‘I told him you were suicidal,’ Angelo drawled softly. ‘And you probably will be by the time I’m finished with you.’

‘Get out!’ Kelda gasped. ‘Get out of my apartment!’

‘It’s not going to be your apartment for much longer.’ Angelo cast her a veiled glance of cruel amusement. ‘In the current market, I suspect you are about to suffer from a severe negative equity problem...the sale price is not going to wipe out the mortgage debt—’

‘Damn, you to hell!’ Kelda interrupted tremulously. ‘I know what negative equity is. I’m not stupid—’

‘You just didn’t manage to pass a single exam in all those years of expensive education,’ he inserted.

‘I’m thick,’ Kelda responded through clenched teeth, refusing to rise to the bait.

‘Surpassingly so,’ Angelo agreed. ‘If you had listened to me, you could have had the modelling career and the education to fall back on. As it is, you have neither—’

‘I can’t believe you actually came here just to crow!’ Kelda blistered back.

‘I want you to understand your present position,’ Angelo breathed almost conversationally. ‘If you think that your future is on the skids now, you’re wrong. Life could become so much more painful... with a little help from me.’

The assurance hung there in the pulsing air between them and her blood ran cold in her veins. She cleared her throat. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Surprised?’ Angelo sank down with innate grace into a wing-backed armchair and surveyed her with total cool. ‘I have no intention of allowing you to come between my father and your mother a second time...’

Her tongue snaked out to wet her dry lips. ‘A second time?’

‘You put considerable stress on their relationship six years ago—’

Rigid with incredulity, Kelda spat, ‘That’s a filthy thing to say!’

‘But true, and this time matters were proceeding smoothly until once again you intervened—’

Kelda was shaking. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

A satiric brow climbed. ‘Last night, Daisy asked my father to give her more time to consider his proposal, and we both know why, don’t we?’

Kelda thrust up her chin. ‘Naturally she wants to think it over very carefully. You can’t blame me for that. For goodness’ sake, she divorced him five years ago!’

‘You selfish little bitch,’ Angelo murmured with a softness that was all the more chilling than a rise in volume. ‘Daisy didn’t have any reservations until after she saw you yesterday!’

Kelda stiffened, colour flying into her cheeks. Derisive dark eyes raked over her, absorbing her sudden tension.

‘She’s afraid of losing her daughter, would you believe?’ Angelo drawled. ‘Family ties are very important to Daisy. What the hell did you say to her?’

‘Nothing that I wouldn’t say again!’ Kelda slung defiantly, although the ache of tears threatened behind her eyelids. ‘And if she is having second thoughts, don’t lay them all at my door. Your father wasn’t exactly Mr Fidelity the first time around and maybe she suspects that!’