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Marina was in front of the house, sitting on the grass with Alexios, and Gaby’s son lifted his arms and loosed a baby shout when he saw his parents.
‘Ilovebeing appreciated,’ Angel admitted, closing an arm to her spine. ‘Can I tempt you into having a second child with me yet?’
Shock stilled Gaby in her tracks. ‘Why?’
‘I missed out on so much the first time around.’
‘And it was all your own fault—anown goal, I think you could call it,’ Gaby pointed out gently. ‘And no, it’s too soon for me to consider another pregnancy...maybe next year.’
Just thinking about the concept blew her mind. Was she really that secure that she could even consider another baby? She couldn’t demand love from him as though it were some kind of right written into the marriage vows, could she? Self-evidently, Angel wanted their marriage to work, and he wanted it to last. He had put in the effort, baring his soul of his worst secret to explain why he suffered from such distrust. With that one act he had blown a huge hole in her defences.
Gaby believed that Angel had been more sinned against than he had sinned. The mother who should have loved him had instead withheld her love and attention and had then let him down unforgivably by succumbing to lust rather than considering or even respecting her son’s needs. He was ashamed of both his parents, ashamed and filled with distaste and regret for the different experiences other adults had with their closest relatives. At least she had warm loving memories of her parents, she reflected ruefully. Until Angel had told her about his childhood, she had not fully appreciated how lucky she was to have had fourteen years with a caring family.
They had only just stepped indoors when his mobile phone began ringing. As she carried Alexios upstairs for his bath, she heard his voice take on a clipped cold edge that was unfamiliar to her and she wondered if something had gone wrong back at the palace. Angel had made several trips back to meet obligations that could not be cancelled, and although she had offered to accompany him he had always refused, telling her that she would have her own schedule and duties to fulfil soon enough.
‘The Crown council want the Coronation held within three months and that will keep us busy for weeks,’ he had pointed out. ‘When we get time off, we take it, and I don’t want you feeling like you have to spend less time with our son.’
There was a terrible irony to the reality that she now understood exactlywhyAngel had insisted on marrying her. Sadly, that truth hurt. His childhood had been quite miserable. Materially he had had everything, but emotionally he had lived in a wasteland where only his parents’ employees had brought warmth into his life. As a result, Angel was determined that Alexios would have a much more positive experience, which he believed entailed two caring parents and stability. Angel set a very high value on a mother’s love. So, he had married her for their son’s sake, and he wouldstaymarried to her for their son’s sake, so naturally he was inclined to look on her a little as though she could be a baby dispenser. Having discovered to his surprise that he adored his son, he was now keen to encourage Gaby to give him another child.
With Martina’s efficient assistance, Gaby bathed Alexios and got him tucked into his sleepsuit, ready for his supper. When she walked back into her bedroom, she was surprised to find Viola already packing for her, for they had not planned to return to the palace until the following evening.
She went downstairs and discovered that Angel was still on the phone. Suppressing a groan, she grabbed a coffee from the machine in the kitchen and walked out to the terrace. Clearly there was some sort of crisis and they were leaving sooner than they had expected.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked as Angel strode out to join her.
‘An almighty mess,’ he told her grimly, his beautiful mouth compressing. ‘We’ll discuss it on the drive back to Aikaterina.’
Within twenty minutes they were on the road. Gaby cleared her throat and shot a bemused glance at Angel’s tense profile.
‘Cassia is in a cell at police headquarters,’ Angel revealed, staggering her with that news.
‘But what on earth—?’
‘The waiter serving you at that restaurant the night you were drugged went missing and, when the police tracked him down, he confessed that he had been given the pill and paid to drop it into your glass of champagne,’ Angel explained tautly. ‘His bank account contained a substantial sum of money and when the police “followed the money”, as they say, it led straight to Cassia. She was arrested. Supposedly she intended you no real harm. She expected you to collapse under the influence of the drug, and look like a drunk or behave in some foolish way that would embarrass you, and therefore me as well, in public...’
Gaby’s eyes were huge. ‘Good heavens...’ she whispered in shock. ‘And what was she hoping to achieve with that? That you would cancel the wedding? Turn your back on your son? I don’t think so.’
‘Whatever Cassia’s intentions, I now have to find a way to deal with this problem, and without blowing apart the rest of my household staff. Until I’ve had more time to think, Gabriella, I can’t discuss this further with you.’ Angel abruptly drew their conversation to a close and resumed his brooding demeanour as he stared out of the window.
Gaby felt stung that he’d shut her down so decisively. This involved her. She was the one who’d suffered at Cassia’s vindictive hands. She had every right to demand that Angel share his plans for dealing with Cassia with her. How could she ever believe that they could have anything approaching a real marriage if, even after baring his soul and seemingly accepting that she would never hurt him, Angel was still shutting her out? After all their talks over the last couple of weeks she’d felt so sure that they were starting to really connect, that maybe he could fall in love with her as she had fallen so deeply in love with him. But the moment something like this happened—something big—Angel was reverting to type.
And as angry and shocked as she was at Cassia’s actions, a tiny part of her felt some sympathy for the woman—after all, hadn’t she thrown all of her usual caution to the wind as she’d allowed herself to be swept up in the whirlwind that was Angel? Who could better understand Angel’s powerful draw than herself? Look at the lengths she had gone to to experience even a slither of his attention. She’d married the man—and not because she’d had to, but, she freely admitted now, because she was in love with him. She knew all too well the pain of loving a man who would ultimately never let himself love her back. Cassia had very obviously had deeper and more enduring feelings for Angel than anyone had realised in order to have gone as far as to drug his fiancée two days before her wedding!
They passed the remainder of the journey in stony silence, and, with Alexios sleeping peacefully in his car seat, Gaby didn’t even have the comfort of her son to distract her from her increasingly despairing thoughts. She now saw that she had a decision to make. Stay in her marriage to Angel and break her heart over him, or leave and break her heart anyway...
The moment they pulled up at the palace, Angel leapt from the car, his mobile phone pressed firmly to his ear as he marched inside and disappeared, leaving Gaby to get herself and their son out.
Gaby had spent what felt like hours holed up in the nursery with Alexios and Marina, struggling to distract herself from her spiralling thoughts concerning Angel and the future of their marriage. She wondered what was being discussed, what decisions were being made on her behalf. Would he ever tell her just what went on behind those closed doors?
The door to the nursery opened and Angel appeared.
He asked her to join him in his wing of the palace.
‘Yourwing?’ she questioned, it not having occurred to her before to have wondered where his bedroom was. ‘I assumed we’d be sharing.’
‘Which I was about to suggest,’ Angel volunteered as he walked her along the wide, high-ceilinged, hugely imposing picture gallery that connected the two different sections of the palace. ‘My parents occupied separate wings.’
‘And you were on the top floor, all of you nicely separated,’ she commented.
