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‘You’ll only be another notch on his bedpost,’ her friends had warned her.
‘But he’ll be the first notch on mine,’ Gaby had parried, lifting her chin.
‘That’s not enough when you’re already obsessed with him. You’ll want more.’
But Gaby had already known that ‘more’ was not on offer and rather than walk away from a fling that refused to be a fantasy at that stage she had decided that she would settle for what she could get. Only it hadn’t turned out like that because, after a couple of more casual meetings, when Angel still studiously refrained from touching her in any way, she had asked him why that was so. And he had explained that he didn’t risk getting involved or being alone with a woman unless she had signed a non-disclosure agreement promising never to take photos or talk about him to anybody. He had presented the concept as being protective for both of them because it would have barred him from ever discussing her with anyone either. But the idea of signing a legal agreement to get any closer to Angel had chilled Gaby to the marrow as well as insulted her integrity.
For a start she hadn’t liked it being almost taken for granted that they would become lovers when whether she would or not was for her to decide in the moment. She had been repulsed by his lack of trust in her sex and disturbed that he didn’t already realise that she wasn’t a social climber, a gold-digger or a woman keen to attract publicity. She had told him that she couldn’t possibly sign such a document. He had done his own case no favours when he’d pointed out that every other woman he had been with in recent years had agreed to the measure. He had, admittedly, endeavoured to explain himself and had assured her that he would ensure that she had her own legal advice, but it had all been too much and simultaneously toolittlefor Gaby when set beside her own foolish romantic hopes.
She had had a mini meltdown and had told him that she would never sign the document and that they were done. Angel had come over all blue-blooded royalty and had reacted with icy dignity, a response that had given her wounded feelings absolutely no satisfaction. Her only consolation in the final row that had followed the day afterwards was that Angel had lost his temper as well.
The next evening, her friends had accused her of moping and had dragged her out to a party. Angel had been there. He had acknowledged her with a casual inclination of his handsome dark head but had made no attempt to speak to her. An hour later she had seen him kiss another woman out on the terrace, a woman she had seen him with before, and shock and possessive rage had assailed her. While she had told herself that it was over between them, in the back of her mind she had expected him to return to her. When he had reappeared back inside, she had breezed past him and hissed in an undertone that he was a dirty, rotten cheater.
Enraged by that condemnation, Angel had called at the flat she had shared with the twins an hour later.
‘We are over. You don’t own me,’ he had told her.
And she had flung a teddy bear at him, the only thing within reach. Mortification still seized her whenever she remembered that moment.
Angel, however, had reacted as seriously as though she had thrown a brick at him. ‘You refused to sign an NDA,’ he had reminded her doggedly.
‘What sort of a man in today’s world asks a woman to sign an NDA?’ she had slammed back at him, punctuating her demand with a rather more solid pottery mug.
Angel had ducked and the window behind him had been smashed and as shards of glass went flying in all directions he had closed a hand round her arm and furiously demanded, ‘Are you crazy?’ His tawny eyes had blazed gold as the heart of a fire.
Shaken by the damage she had caused and embarrassed when her friends came rushing in to check on them, she had backed away. ‘I’m not saying sorry,’ she had told him childishly. ‘I wish I’d hit you!’
And those had been her very last words to Angel five years earlier. And that was what bothered her most about Angel. The feelings he triggered inside her were too powerful and he made her too needy. It took her back to the savage loss of her family at fourteen when she had first learned how much it hurt to lose anyone you loved. She could neither afford nor wish to develop such feelings for Angel.
Angel studied the email and gritted his teeth. He had been ignoring it in his inbox, reluctant to open it, to be forced to handle the conflicting reactions assailing him at the sight of her name. Only now was he finally reading it, only to be taken aback by its very brevity.
I need to meet with you in person concerning an urgent personal matter.
He was conscious of a savage sense of disappointment. He really had believed in his heart of hearts that Gabriella Knox differed from his previous lovers, but that she should contact him months after their Alharian encounter was revealing, he reflected with angry scepticism. Obviously, she wanted something from him, as so many of her predecessors had, and his wide experience of such approaches suggested that what she wanted was most probably money. Or another night with him?
That would have been Angel’s preferred option, but even that was controversial because he knew he could not afford to surrender to temptation again. Memories of that night had plagued him ever since and unnerved a man who considered himself stable as a rock in that line. He didn’t repeat his sexual encounters, considering it far simpler and safer to simply move on to a fresh conquest. Such recollections didn’t usually linger, nor did they have the weird effect of making him ridiculously critical of the other women he met, while just thinking about Gabriella still made him hard. So, no, he definitely didn’t want to seeheragain, but innate caution warned him that he had to check outwhyGabriella had got in touch. And he would guard against any inappropriate further familiarity by bringing legal counsel with him, he decided with a forbidding smile.Thatwould impose a barrier and would also ensure that he stuck strictly to business.
Three weeks later, Gaby climbed laboriously off the bus and walked towards the hotel at which Angel had agreed to meet her. So much cloak-and-dagger nonsense, she reflected ruefully. Did he really see that as still necessary? Still, she could concede that, given the choice, he would not want to be seen in public with a pregnant woman lest he was exposed as the father, but, barring anyone lookingverycarefully at her, she had done her very best to conceal her condition.
She wore a voluminous winter coat over a loose black knit sweater dress and long boots. She was more than eight months pregnant and had not intended to leave telling Angel quite so late, but it had taken a month for her to get a response to her email and then another few weeks to set up the appointment and regrettably she had not factored in that time lag. Perhaps she should consider herself lucky that Angel was willing to agree to an actual meeting, she thought irritably, but really approaching the Queen would have been easier than gaining access to the ruling Prince of Themos.
It was only fair that she tell him that she was having a child...a little boy. Angel had a right to know he was soon to become a father. It didn’t mean that she was expecting anything from him, she reasoned soothingly, bolstering her proud independence.
‘Are you Miss Knox?’ A man in a suit with a security bud in his ear approached her the instant she entered the hotel foyer.
Gaby stilled in surprise. ‘Yes.’
‘Please come this way,’ the man urged quietly.
She was swiftly ushered into a lift by the man, much as though she were engaging in espionage, and her mouth quirked, her sense of humour tickled. Certainly, it would be the only thing she had to smile about on this particular day, she reflected unhappily, because she was not looking forward to telling Angel news that he would not want to hear. Angel would not be familiar with being put in that invidious position, particularly when he had no control over the situation. One of the first things she had noticed about Angel was that he liked and even expected to control everything happening around and to him. He fervently guarded himself from the unexpected. And what could be more unexpected and unwelcome than an unplanned pregnancy?
Pale at that knowledge, Gaby accompanied the security man out of the lift and straight to the door, which opened ahead of them. An unfamiliar brunette in her thirties appeared in the doorway and gave her a frosty appraisal. ‘Miss Knox? Gabriella Knox?’ she queried.
‘Who’s asking?’ Gaby countered quietly.
‘I’m here, Gabriella,’ Angel’s dark deep drawl sounded from deeper in the room, cold and audibly edged with impatience.
Gaby crossed the threshold, conscious of the woman closing the door behind her and remaining with them. ‘I didn’t realise that I would have to ask to see you alone,’ she said flatly.
