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Angel frowned. ‘No, I’m not that superficial.’
‘With me, you were, but maybe you’re always like that with women,’ Gaby remarked with a dismissive shrug. ‘I’m afraid I’m not prepared to walk away from Alexios even though I suspect that that option might suit you the best.’
‘Even though his mother walking away wouldbreakmy son’s heart?’ Angel breathed with incredulous bite. ‘You don’t think much of me, do you? I would never wish such hurt on my son as abandonment by a parent would bring. It happened in my own family and the pain of it resonates even in adulthood.’
Gaby felt as though she had been thoroughly scolded. Her pallor was chased off by a guilty flush while she wondered who had been abandoned in childhood in his family circle. ‘Who in your family did that happen to?’
Angel’s lean dark features tensed. ‘That is a private family matter I cannot discuss with you.’
Gaby reddened and looked away again. ‘Let me sum up what you’ve said. According to you my choices are pretty basic. Marriage or a court battle? Not much room to negotiate there.’
‘Yes,’ Angel confirmed. ‘But there is no viable alternative.’
Gaby chewed her lip to ensure that she didn’t erupt into a flood of exasperated disagreement. In a world where single parents were commonplace, of course there were alternatives, only he was not prepared to consider them. And she didn’t feel that she was in a strong enough or safe enough position to risk angering Angel by fighting bitterly with him. Angel would make a terrifying enemy, and not only because of his stubborn, arrogant and implacable character, but also because of his standing in the world. He was incredibly rich, and he enjoyed diplomatic status. He also had many friends in high places. In a court case centred on a child with a royal birthright, a child who was undeniably important to the country he would one day rule, how could she be sure how such a judgement would go? Mothers did not automatically retain custody of their children in all circumstances. Mothers could and indeed did lose their children if the father were deemed to be the more suitable parent to have custody. Angel might well fit that category when, one day, Alexios would become King.
‘If it’s a choice between a custody battle and marriage, I’ll go for marriage,’ Gaby murmured tightly, resisting the urge to point out that, in her opinion, he was not actually giving her a choice that she could reasonably be expected to think about.
Angel flashed her a sudden brilliant smile, relief lightening his unusually expressive dark golden eyes. ‘It’s the right decision,’ he assured her.
‘But that still leaves us a lot of stuff to talk about,’ Gaby pointed out.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Angel stated with his usual confidence. ‘Once we’re married, everything will fall naturally into place.’
‘Yes, what about...the other hundred and one things that matter in a marriage?’ Gaby pressed urgently.
‘We will be a normal couple...andwe will be a family like other normal families.’ Angel had difficulty putting into words exactly what he wanted for his son, but the word ‘normal’ kept on cropping up along with his highest hopes, reminding him that nothing about his own childhood had been remotely normal...at least, only normal for a severely dysfunctional family.
Angel knew that he was struggling to find words because on many levels he was in turmoil. He had only just discovered that he was a father and to some degree that was terrifying when he looked back at how much his own parents had lethimdown as a child. He knew that he would have to make a lot of sacrifices to be a decent parent. He would have to be there for the big things like birthdays and the little things like learning to swim. He would have to be there when life was good, but he would have to be there even more for his child when his life was difficult. Too often, proud independence had forced Angel as a child to hide his problems and struggle to deal with them alone.
Guilt pierced him when he remembered how he had rejected Gabriella when she was pregnant, when his care for his child and his child’s mothershouldhave begun. He had already failed them once, he could not, would not, do it ever again. He wanted Gabriella, but control with a woman was everything, he reasoned. As long as that sexual desire didn’t get out of hand or threaten to turn into anything that would put him at risk of foolishness, it would be fine, he assured himself.
Gaby studied him in shock at that announcement he had made. ‘But there’s nothing normal about the life you lead.’
‘That life of self-indulgence is over,’ Angel told her almost harshly. ‘Alexios will come first in all things. I want him to be happy in a family setting.’
‘Yes, of course, but what about all the women you currently run about with?’ Gaby vented between clenched teeth as they reached the farmhouse.
‘For once in your life, could you practise optimism?’ Angel cut in reprovingly. ‘Could you expect the best from me instead of only the worst? I can do faithful if I have to.’
Gaby was in absolute shock at the awareness that she had agreed to become Angel’s wife, even while she knew that she would sooner not have been the catalyst for Angel saying that he could do faithful if hehadto. There was nothing normal about that constraint and she wondered how to tell him that creating a normal family would not be easy for a man from his very different background unless he was willing to make enormous sacrifices. Why? Angel had never in his life had to respect limits. As far as she knew he had always done exactly as he liked, and he had done so from a terrifyingly early age. How on earth did he imagine that he would give up the freedom and variety of his very active sex life with uber-glamorous women?
And how on earth could someone who, by the sounds of it, had never known normal in his own childhood declare that he would provide it for Alexios? It was annoying not to know more about his background and troubling that he was so secretive on that topic. The inner conflict he was so determined to conceal only increased her curiosity while his willingness to change his life to best accommodate their son’s needs could only impress her.
CHAPTER SIX
‘THISISTHELIFE!’ Liz declared with a wicked grin as she nestled back in an opulent leather seat on the Diamandis private jet and saluted her sister, Laurie, and Gaby with a cocktail glass in her hand. ‘I give you a toast—to the woman that broke the mould and exceeded all possible expectations, who is about to become aroyalprincess!’
‘Pretty sure you just set feminism back by a century or two!’ Laurie groaned for her twin. ‘No, but I will toast Gaby for her power in getting a commitment-phobic prince to the altar! I think that’s the real achievement here.’
‘Alexios...’ Gaby reminded her friend gently.
‘Your prince isn’t so slow that he couldn’t have wriggled out of marriage if he had wanted to,’ Liz opined. ‘You set far too low a value on your own worth.’
‘Gaby,nobodywas immune to Angel’s attraction at university and loads of women chased him. You’re the only onehehad to chase that I know of and the only one who ditched him!’ Laurie told her with unhidden pride.
Gaby smiled with as much affectionate amusement as she could muster, full of regret that she could no longer be as frank as she had once been with her friends. She bent down to secure Alexios into his seat because the jet was about to land on Themos. It was not that she didn’t trust her friends not to betray her, more that she felt that her son’s privacy had to be protected and family secrets fell under that same label. The true background to the royal wedding due to take place in forty-eight hours would go to the grave with her, she decided morbidly. She hoped she would never be bitter enough to expose Alexios to the reality of his father’s ruthlessness. When it had come down to marriage or running the risk that she might, at the very least, lose full-time custody of her son, Gaby had crumbled, and the matrimonial option had won. Angel had subjected her to his version of a shotgun marriage...
Unfortunately, exposure to Angel generally made her feel that she was weaker than she should be. He was blackmailing her, but she was still fiercely attracted to him and fascinated by him. She suspected that she would always want more than Angel would give her: feelings as opposed to orgasms. Although the latter were wonderful, she craved a stronger connection with him.
