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‘Does she work for you?’ Gaby enquired stiffly.
‘Yes. Her father is a senior courtier and I’ve known her since we were children. It’s not easy to define her position because she falls somewhere between an employee and a friend,’ Angel advanced. ‘And she may not have been very approachable when you first met her, but that will have changed because you are now the future consort.’
‘I see.’ Gaby did see and she didn’t like the news that Cassia still held the status of a trusted friend.
Her reading of Cassia in the past had been that, in spite of constantly playing the ‘good friend’ card, Cassia would do and say anything to frighten off other women and catch Angel for herself. Even so, Gaby had never seen the smallest sign of intimacy on his part with the beautiful blonde and back then Angel had been very much prone to treating Cassia like the wallpaper, pleasant to have in the room but worthy of no particular notice. And nobody knew better than Gaby that when Angel wanted a woman, he smouldered and burned like the heart of a fire around her, she acknowledged as she encountered a scorching glance from his stunning dark golden eyes and her entire skin surface prickled.
Cassia moved forward. ‘I hope your flight wasn’t too tiring, Miss Knox,’ she murmured with a pleasant smile.
‘Gabriella, please. How are you, Cassia?’ Gaby asked politely.
‘I can’t address you by your first name. It would break protocol,’ Cassia informed her with deadly seriousness, as if the bending of one little rule would invoke a lightning strike. ‘Let me show you to your suite.’
‘Thank you, Cassia. I’ll take care of that,’ Angel interposed, still hugging Alexios to his broad chest like a solid little comforter. Her son was resting his head down sleepily on his father’s shoulder, eyelashes drooping.
Angel showed her into a lift tucked in below the sweeping staircase. ‘The nursery is on the top floor. I think we’ll go there first.’
‘Yes, Alexios is tired. He gets all excited about new places and new people and he hasn’t slept today.’
Her breath locked in her throat as she looked at him, ensnared by black-lashed tawny eyes that she could not withstand, and it was like standing too close to a fire, getting burned but still craving the pain.
‘Theos mou...’Angel growled in a roughened undertone. ‘I want you.’
Every nerve ending in Gaby’s body melted into liquidity and overheated her. She was frozen there, her brain momentarily in stasis from the sheer rush of excitement. Angel closed the distance between them, pressing her back against the wall of the lift while his mouth hungrily crashed down on hers. His tongue delved between her parted lips and she was electrified, desire like a roaring wave engulfing her trembling body. Her hand flew up, fingers splaying to spear into his hair and hold him to her. He ravished her mouth with feverish urgency, his passion unleashed, and she was utterly lost in the sensation and excitement of the moment when a little squeak of protest alerted her to the reality that Alexios was being squashed between their bodies.
She jerked sideways and back from Angel as though she had been burned by a live wire and, in a way, she felt as though she had been.
Angel stared down at her in consternation. He had not intended to touch her, but no woman made him feel what Gabriella made him feel: that agonising, clawing need to physically connect. He didn’t want that kind of incendiary bond withanywoman, he never had because he knew the pitfalls all too well. Hadn’t he watched his father sink into the gutter in his attempt to hold his own with the woman he had married, the woman he’d loved beyond reason?
‘I don’t think that was a very good idea,’ Gaby quipped, controlling her anger at both him and herself with difficulty as she lifted her complaining son out of his arms.
‘It was exactly what I wanted. Celibacy doesn’t agree with me,’ Angel imparted as they stepped out of the lift. ‘I’ll be in your room when you return from your evening out.’
Gaby flushed to the roots of her hair, thinking guiltily that he could hardly be blamed for the assumption that he would be welcome in her bed, and she squashed the instant leap of excitement at that idea. She was annoyed that she had not pushed him away. Why did she always let herself down around Angel? Why could she never deny the irresistible pull he exerted over her? Just for once, couldn’t she have stepped back and told him tartly to keep his distance?
‘No, please don’t bother,’ she warned him. ‘I think you’re forgetting how low you had to sink to get me to agree to this marriage.’
‘No, thatwasn’tme sinking low. I believe that I was aiminghigh! Admittedly I put you under pressure, but I was thinking of the future and taking a unilateral decision as to what was best for the three of us as a family,’ Angel shot back at her without apology. In fact, he had the nerve to give her a questioning look as though astonished that she had not yet recognised the higher purpose behind his intimidation tactics.
Gaby gritted her teeth, reckoning that he was shrewd enough to have justified anything short of murder. ‘I should’ve known you’d behave as though you did us all a favour!’ she snapped.
‘So, you’re pulling a Lysistrata to punish me...you’re on a sex strike,’ Angel clarified very drily, referring to the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes. ‘And how good a start do you think that will give our marriage?’
‘Right at this moment, I don’t really care!’ Gaby told him truthfully as he led the way into a very grand nursery that was startlingly contemporary.
‘I had it updated for Alexios. It hadn’t been used since I was a little boy,’ he explained when he saw her staring at the very fancy train-shaped cot and the purpose-built storage for toys and books, every shelf already packed in readiness with items calculated to appeal to a toddler.
Marina appeared with Alexios’s shabby baby bag in tow, and Gaby’s rigid stance eased and she smiled in relief. In a matter of minutes, Alexios was changed and tucked into the cot. Angel closed a hand over her stiff fingers and led her away again. ‘Cassia has some kind of hen party organised for you tonight, but I imagine that it will be a veryproperevent, shorn of phallic symbols and any silliness. She’s invited my uncle, Prince Timon’s two daughters.’
‘Your cousins, who are acting as bridesmaids for us?’ Gaby broke in.
‘Yes, and some other young relatives whom you should meet before the wedding.’
Gaby nodded. ‘Where are you heading tonight?’
‘To a business investment dinner,’ Angel told her, urging her down another flight of stairs. ‘Generally, I have a pretty packed calendar, but I’ve pushed as much as I can to later in the season to enable me to spend time with you and Alexios.’
‘We shall be honoured,’ Gaby responded deadpan, only to still as Cassia emerged from a room just ahead of them.
