Her Best Kept Royal Secret by Lynne Graham

‘WHENAMI going to marry?’ Angelino Diamandis rolled his dark heavily lashed eyes with slumbrous amusement in receipt of his brother’s question.

Christened Angel by his friends, it being an in-joke that he was anything but angelic, the ruling Prince of Themos sprawled back on the upholstered ottoman in an untidy but indisputably graceful tangle of long lean limbs and simply smiled over his cup of coffee. The movie-star good looks that had long made him a favourite of the paparazzi had rarely been more breathtakingly obvious.

Prince Saif of Alharia, clad in the traditional silk finery of a bridegroom, studied his younger half-brother with an unimpressed frown. ‘Why are you smiling? As though I had asked you something foolish? You are a head of state and one day, just like me, you must marry. Neither of us has a choice.’

That last statement was voiced without resentment or self-pity, Angel acknowledged, wryly amused by his brother’s heartfelt sense of duty and honour. Saif still rejoiced in a streak of naivety that Angel had never had. Saif had been surrounded from birth by all the safety barriers a devoted elderly father considered necessary to conserve his only son’s happiness and security.

Angel, in comparison, had never known either parental love or parental protectiveness although he had never admitted that to a living soul. He had been raised by servants and sent to boarding school, his parents much craved but distant figures on his horizon...until he’d gained the maturity to see what they were really like. Catching his mother in bed with his best friend at the age of fifteen had been a cruel wake-up call to reality, and being exposed to his father’s equally grubby activities had been crushing. He had learned that all the money, privilege and status in the world couldn’t compensate for an essential lack of decency and good taste.

Angel had, however, left his brother with his innocent illusions intact about the mother who had abandoned him and her first husband, the Emir of Alharia, to run off with Angel’s father. Queen Nabila and her equally self-indulgent second husband, King Achilles, had, after all, died in a helicopter crash when Angel was sixteen. There was no good reason now to tell Saif the ugly truth about the mother he had never known.

‘Not much choice when it comes to marrying,’ Angel conceded ruefully. ‘But I still wouldn’t have agreed to go into an arranged marriage with a bride I haven’t met, as you have done.’

‘You know the precarious state of my father’s health.’

‘I do, but I also think you will eventually have to stop tiptoeing around him.’

Saif stiffened defensively. ‘You say that because I have not yet had the courage to tell my father about my relationship with you...and I’ve hidden you away here in a forgotten part of the palace to conceal your presence in Alharia on my wedding day.’

Angel nodded gently. ‘We are not children who need to hide wrongdoing,’ he murmured wryly. ‘Our mother grievously betrayed your father, but our blood tie should not be denied because of her behaviour.’

Saif looked troubled, too honest a man to deny that fact. ‘In time I will tell him that we have a sibling relationship.’

Annoyed that he had taken his bad mood out on his serious older brother by reproaching him, Angel changed the subject. ‘I will not be entering an arranged marriage as such when I wed but I have already chosen my bride.’

‘You are in love?’ Saif flashed him a sudden smile of mingled surprise and approval. ‘I had not thought you would even recognise that possibility.’

‘And you were right,’ Angel interposed. ‘I’m not in love and neither would Cassia be. She is simply the most suitable woman I know to take on the role of Queen, although to be frank I have not yet discussed the subject with her. It is merely that I know her practical views on marriage. Status and wealth appeal most to her.’

‘Cassia!’ Saif sliced in, his consternation unhidden because he had clearly been taken by surprise by that familiar name. ‘That frozen blonde?’ Breaking off mid-sentence, Saif reddened at his lack of tact and compressed his lips shut again before concluding, ‘Forgive me... I was—’

Angel shifted a dismissive hand and laughed with genuine appreciation. ‘No, Cassia and the iceberg that sank the Titanic do have much in common,’ he responded equably. ‘But that’s the type of wife I would prefer. I don’t want an emotionally incontinent bride or a demanding one or one likely to be unfaithful or careless of appearances. Cassia will suit me and my needs as the ruler of Themos very well indeed. Our sole challenge would be the production of an heir because I don’t think she is a very physical woman, but no doubt we would deal with that requirement when the time arrives...and neither of us would be in any hurry to get to the altar. I am only twenty-eight and she is twenty-five. According to our constitution, I cannot be crowned King until I marry or produce an heir.’

Saif dealt him a remarkably sombre look. ‘Such a bloodless arrangement won’t work for you, Angel. You have much more heart than you are prepared to admit. Even if Cassia seems the perfect candidate now, at some stage of your life you will want more,’ he declared.

Angel simply laughed again, utterly unconvinced by that sentimental forecast, indeed, only his respect for his brother killing the scornful rebuttal ready to leap to his tongue. He had never been in love in his life, and he didn’t believe he was capable of that kind of self-delusion. It was his belief that love was more often the excuse for the dreadful things that people did. His mother had told him that it had been her love for his father that had made her desert her first husband. Of course, she hadn’t even mentioned the infant son she had left behind at the same time, he recalled in disgust, or the fact that she had already been pregnant with Angel by Prince Achilles. Too often, Angel had seen friends treat each other badly and employ love as a justification for cheating, lying and betraying the trusting or the innocent. He was a realist. He knew exactly what sort of marriage he would be getting if he wed a woman like Cassia and that brand of icy detachment would suit him to perfection.

‘I must return to the reception.’ Saif sighed with regret. ‘I am very sorry that you are unable to join the festivities.’

Setting his cup aside, Angel vaulted fluidly upright. ‘No, you were right to hide me,’ he said softly. ‘I was, as I often can be, impulsive in flying out here the instant you told me you were getting married. For sure, someone would have recognised me at the party.’

His brother gave him a discomfited look and Angel suppressed a sigh but there was nothing he could do to change the situation. He, the child of their mother’s scandalous second marriage, could not expect to be a welcome guest in the Emir’s family circle. Some day, of course, that would change when nature took its course and the elderly Emir passed, but it was unlikely to change any sooner. Angel rejected the faint sense of resentment afflicting him as he accompanied his brother out to the open galleried corridor beyond the suite of rooms where he had been placed. The palace of Alharia was a vast building, built over many centuries and capable of hiding an army should there be that necessity, he thought wryly, glancing over the wall into the courtyard beneath and catching a glimpse of red hair that spun his head back.

‘Who’s that?’ he heard himself ask of the woman below, playing with a ball and a couple of young children.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Saif admitted. ‘By the look of that starchy uniform, someone’s nanny...she probably belongs to one of our wedding guests.’

Belongs?Just as if the woman were a stray dog, Angel savoured with amusement. Was he quite as remote from the domestic staff as his elder brother appeared to be? He didn’t think so. His childhood had put paid to that lofty royal distance. The only affection he had ever received had come from his parents’ employees and he had learned to think of them and see them as individuals rather than mere servants there to ensure his comfort.

‘It was the red hair. It always catches my eye,’ Angel confided truthfully, still looking down into the courtyard while censuring himself for doing so.

Obviously, it wasn’t her! As bright as she had been at Cambridge when he met her, there was no way she would now, five years on, be as humbly employed as a nanny in service. And why hadn’t he long since forgotten about that wretched girl? With her combat boots, stroppy attitude and blue eyes deeper and truer in colour than even the legendary Diamandis sapphires? He gritted his teeth in annoyance at the vagaries of his persistent memories. Was it because she had been the one who, in popular parlance, had got away? Was he still that basic? That male and predictable?

‘Yes...that’s very noticeable,’ Saif remarked with a hint of amusement. ‘You are an unrepentant womaniser, Angel. Everything the global tabloids say about you is true but at least you have enjoyed the freedom to be yourself.’

‘And so will you some day.’ Angel gave his brother’s shoulder a quick consoling pat even while he knew that he was voicing a white lie intended to comfort. As an obedient son, most probably a very faithful husband and the future emir of a traditional country, Saif was unlikely to ever have the liberty to do as he liked, but there was little point in reminding him of that hard fact, Angel reasoned with sympathy.

Luckily for Angel, his subjects didn’t expect moral perfection from their monarch. The island of Themos in the Mediterranean Sea was a liberal and independent nation. Although it was a small country, Themos was also incredibly rich because it was a tax haven, beloved of the wealthy and famous for many affluent generations. The royal family of Diamandis was of Greek origin and had ruled Themos since the fifteenth century. Throughout history Angel’s wily family had retained the throne through judicious alliances with more powerful nations and, while their army might be small, their formidable financial holdings ensured that Themos would always box above its weight.

Angel studied what he could see of the nanny, the gleam of that fiery hair displayed in a simple long braid visible beneath the woven sun hat she wore. In the sunlight that braid glittered like polished copper, summoning up further uninvited echoes from the past. Squaring his wide shoulders as he separated from his brother, Angel turned away and returned to the suite that had been put at his disposal, a glossy concealment of the truth that he was under virtual house arrest until he flew out of Alharia again because his brother didn’t want him to be seen and recognised.

Regrettably, Angel hadn’t realised that that would be a problem. He had assumed that the wedding ceremony would be a hugely crowded public event, not a strictly private affair with only the Emir and the bride’s parents in attendance. He had arrived for the wedding with the comforting belief that there would be so many people present that he would easily escape detection. The discovery that he could not attend either ceremony or reception had exasperated him. As an adult, Angel had little experience of disappointment and certainly not the boredom of hiding out alone in Victorian surroundings, far removed from the comforts he took for granted. He wasn’t a ‘kick back and watch television’ kind of person, he reasoned irritably, but it was only for a few hours. He reached for his phone as it vibrated.

It was the pilot of his private jet. A fault had been discovered in the landing-gear hydraulics. Angel winced even as he was assured that the mechanics team that had already flown in would be working on the problem through the night in an effort to get him airborne and back home again as soon as possible. He swore under his breath and paced the Persian carpet below his feet, wondering what he could possibly do to pass the time...

Gabriella flicked through the television channels again in search of entertainment, but it was no use. Even though she spoke the language, nothing she had so far seen could capture her attention.

In an effort to dispel her bleak mood, she stood up, stretching in the light white cotton sundress she had donned once the sun went down, and her official workday was over. Not that she had had the opportunity to do any real work during her brief stay in Alharia, she reflected wryly. Having registered her services with an international nanny agency the month before, Gaby was only accepting short-term placements. A couple of bad experiences in more permanent positions had made her wary and she intended to be far more cautious when choosing her next live-in employer. Providing childcare cover for wedding guests in the Alharian royal palace had sounded like a ridiculously exciting, glamorous and safe job. Only in actuality the experience, while certainly safe, had proved to be anything but exciting and glamorous. Tired of sitting around doing nothing, she was counting the hours until her flight home the following day.

Aside from an hour in the afternoon spent supervising two six-year-olds, she hadn’t had any children to look after because most of the guests had either left their kids at home or had brought their own staff with them. Someone had overlooked that likelihood when hiring her and she had been surplus to requirements. So, what else is new? she asked herself with faint bitterness. Being an unwanted extra was a painfully familiar sensation for Gabriella.

Her parents and her little brother had died in a motorway pile-up when she was fourteen years old and recalling the sudden savagery of that shattering loss could still make her skin turn cold and clammy. Grief had shot her straight from awkward adolescence into scary adulthood long before she was ready for the challenge. Her mother’s kid sister, Janine, had become Gaby’s reluctant guardian and virtually all the money that her parents had left had been used to pay for the fancy boarding school that had kept her out of Janine’s hair. She had received a terrific education at the cost of the love, security and healing that she had needed so much more. Barely a year after losing her parents and brother she had decided that she would concentrate on becoming a top-flight nanny, after graduating from university. In her innocence, she had assumed that living in a family situation would ease her heartache for the family she had lost.

Only, Gaby reflected with deep sadness, she had been far too young and ignorant of the world when she had made that decision. Unhappily, the job hadn’t worked out the way she had hoped and now she was wondering whether she should be looking at a different career option. Thankfully, she did have the qualifications required to seek an alternative. Gifted from birth, Gaby spoke six languages fluently and had a working knowledge of several more along with a first-class degree in Modern Languages from Cambridge University. The prospect of looking for a starter job in another field held little appeal for her, however, when she was able to earn an excellent salary in the job she was in. Sadly, though, her recent experiences as a nanny had sapped her confidence and left her feeling more alone than ever. Should she fight through that feeling? she asked herself as she lifted her soft drink and wandered out to the courtyard outside her room.

Colourful glass lanterns burned below the loggia that ringed all four sides. Tall fluffy palm trees cast giant shadows across the terracotta floor tiles and the fountain gently spraying water down into a circular pond. The warm still air was infused with the fragrance of exotic flowers, and the sound of the falling water was soothing. There was nothing glamorous about the old-fashioned nursery she had spent her day in, the few people she had met or her small unadorned bedroom, but the courtyard was a truly beautiful place.

She sat down on a stone bench, determined to appreciate her surroundings because tomorrow she would be returning to London and searching for somewhere to live again. She didn’t want to overstay in her aunt’s spare room. She and Janine had never been close. A fresh live-in position would make practical sense, but she could only grimace at the prospect and as she lifted her head and straightened her tense shoulders in denial of that awful surge of anxiety her long loose hair shimmied round her in rippling waves. Nobody was ever going to scare her like that again, she promised herself fiercely, but the fear that someone might try to do so still lingered...

Angel saw her from the walkway above, but she was seated in the shadow of the trees. Only a pale gleaming pair of shapely lower legs was visible from his vantage point. A confident half-smile tilting his wide sensual mouth, he strode down the corner staircase and saw her in the light shed by the lanterns, her metallic copper hair shimmering in a glorious tumble of bright splendour. Angel stopped dead. He had a ‘thing’ for redheads because of a young student who had had hair exactly like that and he was immediately gripped by an intense sense of familiarity.

But it could not be Gabriella Knox, it wasn’t possible, he reasoned with a frown of disbelief, his keen dark gaze narrowing as he stared across the courtyard at her, and instantly fierce recognition fired inside him. That nanny he had glimpsed earlier? It had been her. It was her! His focus now considerably more intent, he appraised her in search of change and found little evidence of the years that had passed.

Possibly that oval face of hers was a little finer now that she had reached her twenties, he reasoned, but, if anything, she was even more of a beauty than she had been at nineteen. Her hair was spectacular, and the delicate cast of her features was only accentuated by her fair, flawless skin. She was a little on the small side, indeed barely five feet two inches in height, but that did not dim Angel’s appreciation of her other charms. The average man might first notice Gaby’s hair and her face, but her highly feminine curvaceous figure commanded equal attention. Five years earlier those wondrous curves of hers had infiltrated his every fantasy.

Back then, he had quantified Gabriella’s appeal, pigeonholed her and rationalised his attraction to her because right from the start she had been trouble and Angel had never in his life before or since chased trouble in his sex life. He didn’t take risks; he didn’t need to take risks. Women were invariably all too willing to agree to his smallest wish...only not Gabriella. Gabriella had stood firm, defying him to the last.

Yet in his opinion what he had asked for had not been unreasonable. Other women hadn’t argued, most certainly hadn’t accused him of trying to steal their freedom or control them. He had an understandable need for discretion in the women he took as lovers. But Gabriella had been too outspoken, volatile and independent to agree to his rules. Encounters with women who only wanted to bed him to sell a story to the paparazzi had educated Angel the hard way and, while the great and good of Themos couldn’t care less that their ruling prince might have remarkable staying power between the sheets, Angel held himself accountable to a higher standard than either of his parents had observed. He believed that revelations in print about his sex life were seedy and undignified.

‘Gabriella...’ Angel murmured tautly.

Gaby was frozen in fear when she glimpsed a dark male silhouette at the edge of the courtyard, but then fear turned into incredulous recognition. Shock kept her locked to the stone bench. Initially she was unable to credit that it could be Angel, but being forced to accept that it was him could only horrify her. Meeting Angel again plunged her into a nightmare of mortification, forcing her back into the painful insecurities of her younger self.

For the space of a crazy few weeks, she had once been madly in love with Angel Diamandis, but he had made unreasonable demands and torn her tender heart to pieces. Subsequently, he had shown neither remorse nor regret. After a massive fight in which she had screamed at him and thrown things, it had all been over, her pride’s sole consolation being that she had dumped him and refused to listen to his excuses. They had certainly not parted as friends and she had been grateful when he had finished his degree and returned home to Themos, so that she need not continue seeing him around.

‘Angel...’ Her strained voice emerged somewhere between a whisper and a croak.

He was so very tall, at least six feet three inches and built with all the classic muscular power of an athlete, broad shoulders and strong chest tapering down to a narrow waist and long, powerful legs. When had she forgotten just how tall he was? In a dark, exquisitely cut designer suit, he was as elegant and classy as he had always been. With every breath that he drew, Angel exuded sophistication, royal pedigree and immeasurable wealth. Even casually clad in jeans he had been an arresting sight, she conceded as he stalked closer, his striking grace of movement holding her attention more than she liked. She hated him, she reminded herself, so why was she staring at him like a rabbit mesmerised by headlights? Of course, five long years on, she didn’t want to still be showing hostility, she reflected in dismay, her cheeks warming, because wouldn’t that kind of oversensitivity only encourage his voracious ego? Be calm, be cool, be polite, she urged herself in desperation.

He moved closer and the lights edging the path illuminated him to gleam lovingly over hard slashed cheekbones set high beneath olive skin, and shadow deep-set dark-as-coal eyes before glimmering across the sculpted lines of his wide, sensual mouth. He was still beautiful in a way she had never known a man could be and he still inexorably took her breath away. The very first time she had seen him she had been unable to stop looking at him and she had tripped over her own feet and fallen down a step, bruising and cutting her knees. Blood had seeped from the wounds as she’d fought the angry tears stinging her eyes for the pain she had inflicted on herself from clumsy inattention. It had not occurred to her in that moment, or to anyone else, that Angel would simply stride across the courtyard, scoop her up into his arms and take her away for coffee and a clean-up as if such care from a stranger were the most normal thing in the world. But then, that Samaritan act had been pure Angel, reacting to a stray impulse and utterly unpredictable.

‘I suppose you are one of the wedding guests,’ Gaby surmised, dredging herself up out of the depth of memories that threatened to drown her. She was rather pleased at the level tone of her voice, which suggested that his sudden appearance was not fazing her at all.

‘Something like that.’ Angel shrugged as only he could do, a graceful shift of a broad shoulder that was continental, eloquent and highly sophisticated in its dismissal. ‘But what are you doing in the Alharian palace?’

‘It would be lovely to sit here and catch up,’ Gaby declared with a fake smile pinned to her lips as she rose hurriedly to her feet. ‘But I’m tired and I was just about to return to my room for an early night.’

‘You can’t still be that angry with me!’ Angel shot at her in sheer wonderment.

Gaby stiffened and lifted her chin, denying the hot colour of embarrassment she could feel flooding into her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then be normal and join me for a drink.’

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate,’ Gaby parried uncomfortably.

‘Since when did I do appropriate?’ Angel mocked. ‘Don’t be a killjoy. Seeing you again here after so many years is a hell of a coincidence and, since we both seem to be at a loose end, why shouldn’t we catch up?’

Gaby gritted her teeth on an acerbic retort, which would be all too revealing to a guy as shrewd as Angel. What he didn’t know about women hadn’t yet been written. He was the biggest playboy in Europe, a living legend of a womaniser. She had her pride, of course she had, and the last thing she wanted him to suspect was that she was still prickly about what had happened between them when they were both students... For goodness’ sake, how juvenile would that be? she scolded herself frantically, desperate to take control of the encounter. It was not even as though they had had an actual relationship back then. They had shared a couple of dates and it had been over before it even properly began between them.

‘Why not?’ she agreed without looking at him, belatedly recalling that he was a prince and that even when he was a student his circle of friends had made a point of always addressing him with the very proper title ‘Your Highness’ or ‘sir’, and that they had visibly winced for her every time she’d neglected to employ the same honorific. It hadn’t been a deliberate omission, though. The reminders of his true status had always come as a surprise to her because, when they were alone together, he had told her to call him Angel and she would always forget who he really was.

She had forgotten because she needed to forget who he was to be with him in any way. A royal prince when she was ordinary. A very rich young man when she lived from hand to mouth, a perennially broke student. A sexual sophisticate when she was still a virgin. But she had closed her eyes to reality because she had wanted desperately to be with him, only she had not been quite desperate enough to sign away her legal rights at his request! And when she had told him no, a word Angel had had very little experience of hearing and no prayer of ever accepting, he had gone off in search of a more accessible and accommodating woman, keen to do whatever it took to be with him, even if the resulting fling would only last a couple of weeks. The longevity of Angel’s interest in a woman lasted about as long as a snowflake falling in summer.

Quieting those turbulent memories while struggling to recover her composure, Gaby accompanied Angel up the stairs in the corner. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘My suite is on the floor above.’

A suite, well, that was only to be expected given his status in comparison to her own. ‘I’m surprised we’re in the same wing,’ she confided. ‘This seems to be a rather out-of-the-way corner of the palace and I understand why I was put here because children can be noisy.’

‘I was a last-minute guest and a late arrival,’ Angel slotted in, his explanation smooth as glass.

He was lying. Gaby didn’t know why he was lying about something so trivial, but five years earlier she had worked out that Angel was at his most smooth and lazy in tone when he wasn’t telling the whole truth, when he was probably bending it for her benefit or his own. He was coldly logical, manipulative, indeed far too clever for his own good, and yet his flaws had inexplicably fascinated her far more than they had repelled her. He had tried to run rings around her and impress her with his wealth and she had stood back watching, involuntarily intrigued by that Machiavellian intellect of his as he tried to discover her weakness and use it against her.

‘What do children have to do with your presence here in Alharia?’ Angel enquired, pressing open a door that mercifully led not into a bedroom as she had feared, but into a spacious sitting room.

‘I work as a nanny. This was a short booking.’

‘You surprise me.’

‘I’m extremely well paid and I enjoy the travel,’ she said lightly, determined to reveal nothing private. ‘Where are your bodyguards? I thought you never travelled without them.’

‘I have no need of bodyguards in a palace as well guarded as this one.’ Angel had left his security team behind in a city hotel because an entourage would only have drawn more attention to him. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘I thought alcohol was forbidden here?’

‘No, it’s not. The Emir merely disapproves but he doesn’t limit his guests. There are chilled wines available,’ Angel murmured, studying her with narrowed eyes of appreciation, well aware that she would slap him if she knew that he was looking at her when her thin cotton dress was transparent against the light.

She wasn’t wearing a bra and he could see everything from the colour of her white panties to the lush swell of small full breasts crowned with prominent pink nipples. He very much enjoyed that view. As a dulled throb pulsed at his groin he dragged his attention from her again, mocking himself for being so very easily aroused. As a man accustomed to topless-bathing beauties, why was he getting hard as a rock at the shadowy glimpse of a nipple? He marvelled at his lack of discipline and wondered if he could put it down to the complete shock of seeing Gabriella again. She unsettled him and he didn’t like that.

‘Rosé...or white wine. Either will do,’ Gaby declared, walking across the room because she felt very self-conscious standing there like a statue. She settled down on a satin-covered gilded sofa that was not conducive to relaxation and lifted her chin, striving to appear composed and uninterested at the same time. ‘So, catching up?’

Keen to avoid the pitfalls of a too-personal conversation with Gabriella, Angel rolled his memory back several years. ‘Whatever happened to those two best friends of yours? The blonde twins?’

It was a winning question, marvellously uncontroversial, he registered as a sudden smile of surprise chased the tension from her plump pink lips. Most women he knew became competitive and curt if he enquired after any other female, convinced that only they should have his attention, but Gabriella was remarkably generous in that line. ‘Liz and Laurie?’ she queried. ‘They both trained as teachers and now they’re married.’

‘Married?’Angel stressed in astonishment. ‘At your age?’

‘And Liz has already had her first child,’ Gaby completed calmly. ‘A little boy. He’s so cute.’

Angel winced as if such fond talk of children were in some way embarrassing. ‘You always liked kids, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you decided to work with them, but there is so much more in the world.’

‘Wine, men and song aren’t really my style,’ Gaby said drily, her attention locked to him in spite of her efforts to look away.

But there Angel stood, a living, breathing magnet for female attention. It was as if he sucked all the oxygen out of a room when she looked at him because she could barely swallow, and her mouth was dry. She still struggled to credit that a man could be as breathtakingly handsome as he was without being excessively vain or making the smallest effort to impress. She remembered the extraordinary efforts other women had made to grab his attention at university and reminded herself that she had not been one of them.

Angel flashed a sizzling smile at her as he uncorked a bottle of wine and poured it. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to make an insulting remark about my reputation.’

Gaby went pink and lifted her chin as he crossed the room to extend a wine glass to her. ‘You’re reading something into my response that wasn’t intended.’

Angel grinned as if she was hugely amusing him. ‘You’re so full of prejudice that you don’t even see it. Instead of acknowledging the attraction between us, you look for an excuse to write me off. It was always like that. You never gave me a fair chance.’

Infuriated by that condemnation, Gaby leapt upright. ‘I—’

‘And now you’re going to shout loudly at me and throw things to make sure that you can’t hear anything that you don’t want to hear,’ Angel forecast, smooth as glass.

Gaby could feel temper mushrooming up inside her like an explosion and she swallowed it back while her hands closed into tight fists of restraint. Angel gazed back at her, dark eyes flaming like golden torches of challenge, and she sat down again abruptly, refusing to fulfil his low expectations of her.

‘I think I’ve grown up a little more than that,’ Gaby murmured stiffly, her spine rigid, her chest still heaving as she battled to get her temper back under control. No man had ever driven her to such immediate rage as Angel did. He had a special knack in that department. They were oil and water or hay and a lit match, she conceded heavily.

‘Prove it,’ Angel invited, striving not to let his attention be drawn by the shimmying swell of her sumptuous breasts below the cotton. ‘Enjoy your wine. Talk to me.’