Lynne Graham: Angel Of Darkness

Angelo’s striking bone-structure clenched hard. ‘I told you that there was absolutely no truth in those allegations years ago,’ he grated with savage emphasis. ‘And if you have repeated those same lies to Daisy, I’ll break every bone in your poisonously vindictive little body!’

Shocked by the depth of his anger, Kelda paled and drew back a step, but she was outraged by his treatment. No, she had no concrete proof to offer her mother on the subject of Tomaso’s adulterous affair but, the year before their parents had separated, Kelda had flung that allegation at Angelo.

And for a fraction of a second Angelo’s expression had one hundred percent convinced her that he knew exactly what she was talking about and that he was well aware of his father’s extra-marital relationship with another woman. Kelda had taken him by surprise and his complete denial of that relationship had come just that little bit too late to be plausible.

Angelo had known all right. And no doubt, Angelo hadn’t seen anything the slightest bit immoral in Tomaso’s behaviour. In his world, married men with mistresses were far from unusual. But that same knowledge would have destroyed her mother. Now, Kelda found herself wondering if indeed her mother had at least suspected Tomaso of having another woman. It was quite possible that Daisy would have kept that information to herself, rather than share it with her teenage daughter.

‘What did you tell her?’ Angelo demanded ferociously.

‘I told her nothing...not that that is any of your business,’ Kelda stressed.

‘When my father’s happiness is at stake, it is my business.’

‘I doubt if he’d thank you for your interference...and if my mother knew that you were here threatening me like this—’

‘Are you planning to tell her?’ Angelo had the stillness of a jungle cat about to spring.

Kelda wouldn’t have dreamt of telling Daisy, but she was furiously angry and she lifted a bare pale shoulder in a deliberately provocative gesture. ‘I might...on the other hand I might not,’ she said sweetly, incandescent green eyes flaming at him. ‘You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you, Angelo?’

He had gone satisfyingly white beneath his bronzed skin, his facial bones harshly set. Kelda smiled, widely, brilliantly, smugly. It really had been very foolish of Angelo to come here and threaten her. Astoundingly foolish...astoundingly out of character for so noted a tactician. One lean brown hand was curled into his fist and without warning he stood up again.

‘I came here tonight to appeal to your better nature—’

‘I haven’t got one, Angelo...not where you’re concerned,’ she said shakily but truthfully.

‘I could break you with one hand,’ Angelo savoured, eyes as treacherous as black ice on a wintry night, fixed to her with savage intensity. ‘And I will...I don’t mind waiting a little while...a very little while. And while I’m waiting, you’ll be waiting too...’

Icy fingers were walking up her unbelievably taut backbone. Angelo hated her, he really did hate her. And she knew why. It lay unspoken between them, untouched but raw. She shivered, no longer able to meet that hard, dark scrutiny. Had she gone overboard? Should she for once have kept her mouth shut? But why should she stand and take abuse from Angelo?

Her front door shut with a soft click. Shaking all over now, released from the spell he always cast, Kelda collapsed down into the nearest seat. She felt sick. He had called her poisonous, vindictive, and yet all she wanted was her mother’s happiness. Had it been selfish to make it clear that if Daisy married Tomaso again she was unlikely to see so much of her adored daughter?

But hadn’t that only been the truth? She couldn’t stand Angelo, and the savage hostility between them would be painfully obvious to both their parents. It would hardly add to connubial bliss, so naturally her contact with her mother would have to take place only when Angelo was elsewhere. Was that her fault? Was that so horribly selfish of her? Tears lashed her eyelids in a scorching surge. The memories were coming back...

Yes, she had bitterly resented her mother’s remarriage all those years ago. Had she had a chance to get to know Tomaso in advance, had she even known of his existence, maybe she would have reacted differently.

The sudden material change in their lifestyle hadn’t helped. Kelda had been parcelled off to an exclusive boarding school where her accent had provoked her classmates to pitying laughter. Her friends, her great-aunt, everything that had given her security had been wrenched away all at once. Instead of seeing more of her mother, she had actually seen less of her. Was it really any wonder that she had found it so hard to adapt?

The worst shock had been the discovery that, when their parents were abroad, Angelo was expected to take responsibility for her. Angelo ruled with an iron rod. When she was expelled from that first school for going ‘over the wall’ one night on a dare, it had been Angelo who took charge and reinstalled her in a convent day school with more rules and regulations than Holloway. It had been Angelo who took her apart when she failed her exams, Angelo who forced her to spend several fruitless vacations swotting with private tutors as bored and fed up as she was.

Tomaso had seemed to find his son’s assumption of authority amusing. When he was around, which had been rarely, he hadn’t interfered. Her mother had had a tendency to slip out of the room when Kelda appealed to her for back-up. Defying Angelo to her last gasp, Kelda had refused to work. She had frequently been in trouble at school but she hadn’t cared because for the first time in her life she had been really popular.

At sixteen, Angelo had trailed her screeching out of her first boyfriend’s car. She had sneaked out on the date, conscious that her mother would think that Josh at twenty-two was too old for her. The evening had been spent at a ten-pin bowling alley...nothing could have been more innocuous. Josh had parked his car a hundred yards before the entrance of the house on the way back. He had been on the brink of giving her a kiss...only on the brink, mind you, when all of a sudden the door was wrenched open and she was forcibly hauled out of Josh’s reach by Angelo.

‘Approach her again and I’ll break every one of your fingers,’ he had told Josh with a chilling smile. That had been the end of that, and the word had gone out on her locally. Josh had talked. Date Kelda and you tangled with Angelo Rossetti. Not surprisingly, it had destroyed her social life. Even her girlfriends had laughed and, not content with humiliating her, Angelo had told Tomaso and Daisy, ensuring that what little freedom she had had was even more severely curtailed. He had made Josh sound like a potential rapist.

Was it any wonder that she had hated Angelo? Even now, it still stuck in her throat that she had had to endure all those years of Angelo’s moralising lectures. What about his own reputation?

From birth, he had made headlines. When Tomaso and his far richer Brazilian wife had split up, Angelo had been the most fought-over little boy in the Western world. Tomaso had lost, but when his ex-wife died he had fought for custody again, this time against Angelo’s grandmother. Tomaso had won the final battle, but he hadn’t managed to subdue the explosive temperament that powered his son.

Angelo’s teenage exploits had shocked Europe. At the age of eighteen, he had inherited his late mother’s millions, and for several years afterwards he had run wild. He had lived the self-indulgent life of the super-rich playboy. His insatiable appetite for beautiful women had been notorious. His sex-life might have become considerably more discreet over the last decade but husbands still paled in Angelo’s vicinity.