CHAPTER NINE
ANGEL felt Leo put a hand to her face, tipping it to him slightly, and she closed her eyes. She hadn’t wanted him to see her like this; she’d wanted him to just say, ‘Okay, fine, I’ll go without you.’ But he hadn’t. She knew what he was looking at: her swollen jaw covered with a livid bruise.
Angel tried to pull free, but Leo wasn’t budging. He pushed her hair back behind her ear to have a better look. His voice was grim. ‘Have you put ice on this?’
Angel looked into his eyes for the first time. ‘It’ll hurt.’
Leo shook his head. ‘Only for the first few seconds.’ And then very gently he probed and felt her jaw. Angel winced and sucked in a breath. Leo swore softly. ‘It’s not broken, but maybe we should get it checked out at the hospital.’
Angel shook her head. ‘No, no hospital. It’s just sore.’
Leo looked at her until she couldn’t bear it and tore her eyes away. Emotion was welling up from deep down and she was afraid she couldn’t contain it. He led her over to a stool and made her sit down, lifting her onto it. Then he went to the fridge and got some ice, wrapping it in a towel. He brought it back and ever so gently laid it against her jaw, soothing Angel when she moved to pull away instinctively. The pain made spots dance before her eyes for a second, and then the coolness was beautifully numbing.
To her abject horror she could feel hot tears welling, and before she could stop them they were overflowing and falling down her cheeks. She gave a dry sob. ‘I’m sorry, I just—’
Shock was starting to set in too; she’d been holding it back since it had happened. But now she could feel her teeth start to chatter, her limbs shaking uncontrollably. Leo said something rapid in Greek over her head. Angel dimly guessed it had to be to Calista. Calista who had wanted to ring Leo earlier, but Angel hadn’t let her.
In moments Calista was back, and tutting, and handing a glass of what looked like brandy to Leo. Leo dismissed the other woman and made Angel take a sip of the amber liquid. It had an immediate effect. Leo gently wiped at the tears caught on her cheeks.
After a few minutes of letting the drink have its effect, Leo took the ice from Angel and gently led her off the stool and out of the kitchen. He said something else to Calista, who was hovering nearby—something about ringing his PA to tell her he was unavailable for the evening.
He was leading Angel into the informal living room when she started to protest. ‘No, you should go out. You have that premiere …’
Leo sat Angel down and brought the ice back up to her face. He looked at her steadily. ‘Do you really think I’m going to sit through two hours of American inanity while you’re here like this?’
Leo took the ice down, placing it on a nearby tray, and inspected her jaw again. And then his eyes speared hers: no escape.
‘So, are you going to tell me who punched you in the jaw?’
Angel bit her lip. She couldn’t lie. Calista knew anyway, and she’d tell Leo in a second. As if reading her mind, Leo said easily, ‘Don’t even think of trying to defend whoever did this, Angel.’
Angel could feel the colour draining from her face, and Leo cursed softly again, making her sip more brandy.
Eventually, after a long silence, he just raised a brow. He wasn’t budging until she told him. ‘I … my father came to visit me today.’
She looked down, shamed by her own father. And shamed by how hurt she was after all these years that his lack of love still had the power to hurt. Leo gently tipped her face up to him again.
‘Your father did this?’
Angel nodded. ‘He had been drinking. He came to tell me how I’d disrespected our family name. Normally I can avoid him, but … he just caught me unawares. I wasn’t fast enough. I never expected him to come here.’
Leo’s voice was blistering. ‘He’s done this before?’
Angel nodded, more shame coursing through her. She felt so weak. ‘Never this bad, though. When I was smaller he’d lash out at me—he’s always resented me for reminding him of the humiliation of my mother deserting him … us. I learnt to avoid him. Just today …’ Angel wasn’t about to reveal that she’d been preoccupied with defending Leo when her father had lashed out with unexpected accuracy.
A lot of pieces started to fall into place in Leo’s head. What he’d seen at the wedding; the fact that Angel had been sent to a remote boarding school. ‘That’s why you haven’t been home once since you came here.’
Angel nodded slowly.
Through a granite-like weight in his chest, Leo asked, ‘He really didn’t send you here to the villa, did he? The night of the party or the night I found you in the study?’
Angel shook her head. Her heart had leapt into her mouth and was beating so hard she felt a little faint.
‘Why were you here that night, then, Angel?’
‘The night of the party was exactly as I told you. I had no idea where we were going and then it was too late. I tried to stay in the kitchen, but my boss sent me upstairs …’ She blushed. ‘I truly didn’t know who you were at the pool, or on the terrace. I’d avoided reading anything about your family coming home. I was too ashamed.’
She stopped. She couldn’t believe that Leo was listening to her. She willed him to believe what she said. ‘And that next night … I wasn’t stealing the will. I was trying to return it.’
Leo frowned. ‘Return it?’
‘I’d come home from work the previous evening and found my father crowing over it … that’s how I knew about your mother. He’d sent some of his goons to steal it. To be honest, I’m not sure how he did it, or even if it had been taken from the villa. I just assumed … And when I could, I took it from him and brought it back, thinking I could just leave it in a drawer, or something.’
She looked away for a second, and then back. ‘I felt so bad about your family, what you’d been through, and I didn’t want him to be responsible for causing more trouble. But then you came in …’
‘And the rest is history,’ Leo said without humour. Angel had never seen him look so grim.
He shook his head, his eyes dark with something indefinable. Something that made Angel’s heart trip unsteadily. ‘Angel, I—’
She spoke quickly. ‘Leo, I know exactly how it looked. I wouldn’t have believed me. That’s why I didn’t even try and defend myself. I knew there was no point. The whole situation was completely damning.’
‘No.’ A muscle popped in Leo’s jaw. ‘Your father had to knock you about before I’d see the truth.’
Angel shook her head. ‘Leo, don’t, please. I brought this on myself.’
Leo was fierce. ‘Not like this, Angel, never like this. If I’d thought for a second that your father was capable of this …’ Waves of anger vibrated off Leo.
He touched Angel’s cheek and said huskily, ‘You must be exhausted.’
Angel nodded. ‘I am a little.’ But she thought of going to sleep, and all the images waiting to crowd her mind: her father’s mottled face, the way his hand had come out of nowhere and stunned her so badly that she’d blacked out for a minute, only to come to and see him rifling through the drawers of the study. Thankfully Calista had had the sense to be nearby, and had called the security guard up from the gate. He’d escorted Angel’s father from the villa, but not until Angel had insisted that his pockets be searched. Luckily he hadn’t found anything worth stealing.
‘But I don’t want to go to bed …’ Her voice was more fierce than she’d intended, and she saw Leo wince.
‘Angel, you must know that I wouldn’t expect—’
She covered her hand with his, inordinately touched. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I just mean I don’t really want to go to sleep—not just yet anyway. I don’t want to think about … what happened.’
Leo nodded. Within minutes Angel was sitting on a comfortable couch in the TV den, with a blanket over her, while Leo went to get some food from Calista. Then he was back and fussing over Angel like a mother hen, making her take some soup, because it would hurt too much for her to have to chew anything.
It felt as if the most delicate chain of silver stretched between them now, connecting them, and Angel clung onto it greedily.
Leo switched on the TV without asking any more questions, and seemed content to watch inane TV, sensing Angel’s need to get lost in something. She let the ribald movie wash over her like a balm, and relished Leo’s protective arm around her like a guilty secret.
Angel’s body had turned into a dead weight against Leo. He looked down at the glossy head that lay against his chest. The hand so trustingly curled against him. So many questions bubbled up inside him, so much recrimination, and underneath it all a fierce, primal anger. He could still see the livid swelling, and wanted to go and find Tito Kassianides and beat him to a pulp. Leo had to consciously calm himself. His heart-rate was already zooming skywards just when he thought of that man.
But, as if in league with his earlier thoughts, an insidious voice mocked him. What if this was all a set-up? What if this was part of a plan—a ruse to arouse his sympathy, his trust in Angel? Leo felt sick at the thought. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. She’d been a virgin, for heaven’s sake. His body still thrilled with a deep-seated male satisfaction at knowing that he’d been her only lover.
Too much had fallen into place when Angel had explained everything earlier. Leo was disgusted with himself. Was he so jaded, so cynical after witnessing what he had as a child, that he’d believed someone would go to the lengths that Angel had in order to manipulate him?
Grimly, he knew he didn’t have to answer that question. Leo flicked off the TV and without disturbing Angel stood from the couch, lifting her into his arms. He took her up to his bed and, after settling her, took off his clothes and got in beside her, pulling her close.
Angel woke when the dawn was a faint light coming into the room from outside. She registered that she was in Leo’s bed, in her panties and T-shirt. She went hot. He must have taken off her tracksuit bottoms when she’d fallen asleep on him downstairs. She was on her side, and Leo was tucked around her, his arm a heavy weight over her waist, his hand close to cupping her breast. He was naked. Despite everything her blood stirred and her body started to hum.
She had a premonition of Leo waking to find that she was still in his bed, and went to move. She heard a deep growl. ‘Stay where you are.’
Angel stopped moving, but couldn’t pretend she could sleep again—not when she felt Leo’s body hardening and firming against hers, making her want to push her bottom against him in clear provocation. Her breathing had grown short and shallow. She lifted her head minutely, to ease a slight ache, and sucked in a breath when pain shot through her jaw, reminding her all too clearly of yesterday’s events.
Instantly Leo moved and hovered over Angel, his jaw dark with stubble. With a gentle hand he turned her face so he could see. His eyes and his low curse told her how bad it looked. It felt as if it had turned into the size of a football.
She winced. ‘Is it very bad?’
Leo quirked a wry smile. ‘It’s a glorious shade of blueish purple, and about as big as my fist.’ Then he got serious. ‘We’re going to the hospital today, Angel, I don’t care what you say.’
Angel knew better than to argue. She lay there and looked up at Leo, and felt her chest and heart swell. With the impenetrable wall of mistrust between them gone, she realized that she loved him. She really loved him. Without thinking, she reached up and traced the scar above his lip with a finger. ‘How did you get that?’
Leo caught her finger and kissed it. ‘I’d like to be able to say that I got it while defending a younger kid from being bullied.’
‘You didn’t?’
He shook his head mock-mournfully. ‘No, I got it when I fell off my training bike onto the sidewalk when I was three.’
Angel’s heart lurched, and she fell a little bit more in love. She would have smiled if it hadn’t hurt, but Leo was tucking himself around her again and saying, ‘Go back to sleep, Angel, you need it.’
Angel felt the waves of tiredness coming over her again and said sleepily, ‘Okay, but wake me up and I’ll go back to my own bed in a bit …’
Angel didn’t see the spasm of pain cross Leo’s face. Leo lay awake, staring into the dim morning light for a long time.
Two weeks later Angel looked at the finished set of jewellery for Ari and Lucy. She looked at it but didn’t really see it. Experimentally she moved her jaw and touched it gingerly. The swelling had gone down completely, and all that remained of the bruise was a faint yellowish tinge that could be covered by make-up.
Leo had taken Angel to a private clinic the day after it had happened and they’d ruled out a fracture; it was just a very severe bruise. Since that night Leo had been amazingly attentive, eschewing all public engagements to stay at home with Angel despite her protestations. From going out practically every night, now they ate in, and Leo had surprised her one night by dismissing Calista and serving up a delicious home-cooked dinner. He was doing absolutely nothing to help her stop falling deeper and deeper in love with him, and she knew that he would not welcome it.
Clearly Leo was feeling guilty at having misjudged her, despite her assurances that she had been as much to blame by coming here in the first place. He’d insisted that Angel sleep with him every night, but he’d been careful not to touch her. Last night Angel had turned to him in the bed, frustration clawing through her body. She knew Leo was aroused, she felt it every night, but he was making the same protestations. Treating her as if she was made out of china and might break.
Angel had put her hand around him intimately and said, ‘I’m better, Leo, please …’ She cringed now to think of it, of how ardently she’d responded when he’d finally groaned deep in his throat and drawn her on top of him, lifting her vest away, helping her out of her pants. She’d felt as if she’d been starved of water in the desert for a month. But she’d been the one to initiate it, not Leo.
Angel shook her head, and then started violently when she heard a noise come from the door. Leo stood there, nonchalantly leaning against the frame. Her heart turned over as it always did. She smiled shyly. ‘Hi.’
Leo smiled too and, slightly mesmerised, Angel thought again that when he smiled he looked a million miles away from the tough tycoon. From the man who had coldly blackmailed her.
He strolled in and looked at Angel’s handiwork; she took in his expression nervously, valuing his opinion. He picked up the bracelet and then the earrings, turning them this way and that. Finally he put them down and said, ‘You’re really good—you do know that?’
Angel half shrugged, embarrassed. ‘It’s what I love to do, so if I can make a living out of it then I’ll be happy.’
Leo put out a hand and trailed a finger gently down her injured jaw. ‘It’s almost healed.’
Angel nodded. ‘I can put some make-up on it for tomorrow night, when we go to Lucy and Ari’s for dinner.’
He nodded and then backed away, but for a second Angel could have sworn he’d wanted to say something. She forgot about it, though, when they settled down to eat dinner, after which Leo went into his study to work for a while, and Angel went to her workshop to do some last-minute checks on the jewellery for Lucy. Tomorrow she’d go into town and buy some boxes to package them before they went for dinner.
The following day Leo stood at the window of his office in Athens, looking out at the view, but not registering it. He was consumed with one thing, one person: Angel. She was turning him upside down and inside out. For someone who broke out in a rash at the thought of waking up in a bed with a woman, now he couldn’t relax properly unless he knew Angel was going to be the first thing he saw every morning.
The guilt of how his behaviour had put her in danger still made him feel nauseous, and yet she’d begged him not to do anything to her father, reminding him that her father would capitalise on the slightest hint of enmity to fuel their feud. The best form of revenge was ignoring Tito, even though it killed Leo to do so.
In the days after she’d been hit it had been easy to restrain himself from touching her sexually. His concern had overridden his desire, and he had also felt something else more disturbing: the knowledge that his making love to Angel had become imbued with something much more ambiguous than revenge. Something that came with silken ties binding around him tightly. Silken ties that reminded him of a time when he’d vowed never to allow someone to get close enough to arouse this awful welling of emotion and feeling.
He shook his head. He hated being introspective, so when his thoughts were cut abruptly short by a soft knock he welcomed it, saying, ‘Come in.’
His PA opened the door. ‘Ari Levakis is here to see you.’
‘Thanks, Thalia, send him in.’
He smiled when he saw Ari walk in, and greeted him heartily. They sat down to discuss the business at hand, neither one needing to stand on ceremony, both trusting each other as only men of a similar standing could.
After an hour of intense discussion Ari sat back with a coffee cup in hand and looked at Leo. Unaccountably Leo felt the hair tighten on the back of his neck.
‘I spoke to Angel yesterday. She says she’ll have the jewellery ready for this evening when you come to dinner. I hope she hasn’t been under too much pressure to get it done.’ Ari frowned. ‘We haven’t seen either of you out lately, so I hope you haven’t been slave-driving her.’
Leo smiled tightly and fought the image of coming home every evening that week and finding Angel immersed in her task, covered in the fine dust of the precious metals and stones she’d been working with, dressed in the ubiquitous vest tops and battered dungarees, which always had an instantaneous effect on his arousal levels.
Leo realised he still hadn’t answered Ari; he’d got so caught up in his own memory. He flushed, and probably sounded harsher than he’d intended. ‘Not at all … We’ve both been happy to take a break from the social scene. She has been working hard at it, but she’s enjoyed doing it.’
That was true. She’d been oblivious to him several evenings, until he’d come in and taken the headphones of her iPod out of her ears, and then she’d turned to him and smiled …
‘When I first heard you were seeing her I had my doubts. After all … she is who she is, and she’d turned up like that at your father’s house.’
Leo looked at Ari, and something must have shown on his face because Ari spread his hands in a gesture and said, ‘What? You can’t blame me, Leo. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Athens is full of beautiful women and you went for the most unlikely one—some would have said the most unsuitable one. No one would have blamed you if you’d ignored that whole family in the street.’
Ari only knew the half of it. What would he say if Leo told him what else had happened? Would Ari have jumped to the same conclusion, damning Angel before she’d had a chance to defend herself? Would he have used his knowledge to blackmail her into becoming his mistress? Leo got up, suddenly feeling agitated. Would Angel have ever become his mistress of her own volition?
Leo struggled to articulate some platitude, feeling like a fraud, and not liking his defensiveness. ‘Our shared history is our business … there is a certain … synchronicity to how we came together.’
When he said those words Leo had a disturbingly vivid memory of how Angel had felt that first time he’d taken her, how she’d arched beneath him and entreated him to keep going, and how it had taken all of his skill and restraint not to hurt her. Sweat broke out on his brow. He was feeling seriously cornered.
Angel knocked on the outer door of Leo’s office. His PA Thalia looked up and smiled warmly. The two had met when Thalia had come to the villa one night to work late with Leo.
‘Hi, Angel. He’s with Ari Levakis, but they should be done soon. I’m going out for lunch now.’ The other woman started to get up from behind her desk, ‘He knows I’m going out, but just in case he’s forgotten could you remind him I’ll be back at two?’
Angel smiled. ‘No problem. I just brought him some lunch.’
She watched Thalia leave and then put the small brown paper bag on the desk and walked around the anteroom. It and the whole building screamed wealth and prestige. She’d been on her way home from picking up boxes for the jewellery, and while she was out had decided to make a visit. Angel hadn’t been to Leo’s office before, and butterflies were beating a symphony in her chest.
She looked at the paper bag and grimaced. She’d bought him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Was this the most stupidly transparent thing she’d ever done?
She jumped when the doorknob rattled and the door opened slightly. Leo’s meeting must be over. She held her breath, but no one came out. With the door ajar, she could hear the deep rumble of Ari’s voice.
‘Lucy and I really like her.’
Angel’s heart stopped cold, and her breath with it, as she listened. Leo’s voice came, deep and strong.
‘I know you do.’ He said nothing else for a moment, and Angel could imagine him raking a hand through his hair. Even without seeing him she could sense that he was irritated, and wondered why.
‘Look, Angel and I … it’s just a temporary thing. I have no desire to settle down with the first woman who crosses my path in Athens.’
Ari’s voice was dry, and further from the door. He must have moved back into the room. ‘I appreciate that she mightn’t be the most … appropriate … wife material.’
Angel winced, and felt as if a knife were skewering her insides. Leo laughed then, and the knife sank a little deeper.
‘Angel becoming a permanent fixture in my life might be taking my father’s tolerance levels a little too far, and Athens is still reeling with our association as it is.’
Ari laughed briefly. ‘You certainly know how to stir it up, Parnassus … but does Angel know this?’
The temperature in Leo’s voice went down a few hundred degrees. ‘Angel knows exactly what to expect from this relationship.’
The tone of Ari’s voice told Leo that he wasn’t intimidated. ‘Like I said, Lucy and I really like her. I just hope she does know what to expect, we’d hate to see her get hurt …’
A dangerous quality came into Leo’s softly spoken words. ‘Is that a warning, Levakis?’
Ari was undeterred. ‘Take it how you want, Leo … I just don’t think Angel is like the other hardened socialites of our circles. Once I might have assumed it, but after getting to know her …’
Leo’s voice was hard. ‘You don’t have to worry. Angel and I know exactly where we stand.’
Ari laughed briefly. ‘Lucy sent me here with a flea in my ear … so we’ll see you and Angel later. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished pieces.’
Angel didn’t wait to hear the rest. On legs that were numb, and feeling as if every ounce of blood had drained from her body, she stumbled back out of the anteroom and all but ran to the lift.
It was only when she was descending that she remembered leaving the brown bag behind. Dread struck her to think that Leo might find it, but she had no intention of going back. She could only stumble out of the lift, into the street, and get away from Leo’s office as quickly as she could.
A little later, as Angel polished and finished off the pieces she’d made for Lucy, she bitterly castigated herself. What had she expected, truly …? That Leo had somehow miraculously come to have feelings for her? She was his mistress; he’d taken her because he desired her, because he’d had the power to give Delphi her wedding and because he’d believed Angel guilty of a crime. Since Leo had learnt what had really happened the lines might have got a little blurred for Angel, but after hearing that conversation evidently Leo hadn’t felt the same way.
She was the naive fool who had allowed herself to believe that the tenderness he’d displayed in recent weeks had meant something.
Angel’s hand went to her belly and she bit her lip. The other night when Angel had all but begged Leo to make love to her they hadn’t used contraception. Angel had assured Leo that she was at a safe place in her cycle, but now she wasn’t so sure.
The thought that she might get pregnant made her go cold all over—especially after hearing Leo’s stark words to Ari today. One thing was crystal-clear: this relationship was heading for closure, and sooner rather than later. Angel knew that Leo would not appreciate being forced into fatherhood by a Kassianides, and what if he thought she’d done it on purpose? She had an awful feeling that he still didn’t trust her entirely.
The phone rang then, making her jump, and Angel reached for it. Leo had insisted on getting a phone installed in her workroom.
‘Hello?’
‘Why didn’t you stay?’
Angel’s heart tripped, and she gripped the phone with two suddenly slippery hands. The sandwich—he must be mortified.
‘I … had to get back to package up the pieces. I only dropped in to say hello, but you were busy.’
He said nothing for a moment, and Angel could imagine him sitting in his palatial office.
‘Thank you for my lunch.’
Angel laughed, and it sounded false to her ears. ‘Oh, God, that. I don’t know what—’
‘It was sweet.’
Angel was glad she was alone, because a raging fire of humiliation was burning her up from her toes to her head.
‘I’ll be home at seven. See you then.’
And the connection was terminated. Angel’s heart was thumping out of control; she felt shaky and clammy all over. She was a mess. She was in love. And she was doomed. The Parnassus family were going to have the last laugh after all.