‘The nest-egg for your college career?’
‘That’s right. When it ran out we had to rely on state benefits.’
‘When did Ghastly Gavin enter the picture?’
Angel gave a choke of laughter. ‘How do you know he was ghastly? You never met him.’
‘I met him in the pages of that damned magazine, and he’s ghastly all right.’
‘Not to me, then. At nineteen all you see is looks, and his looks were gorgeous. I had sentimental fantasies of marriage, a happy home, with Sam making a third.
‘Then I entered a television quiz show and won some money. I paid a few bills and bought Sam some new clothes. Gavin hit the roof. He wanted to splash out on a holiday. We had a row, he said it was time I had Sam “put away”, so I kicked him right out of my life.’
‘Good for you. But how does Joe Clannan come into this?’
‘He had shares in the production company that made the programme. He was there during the recording, and he asked me out. I was still mad at Gavin and Joe seemed like a nice guy. We dated for a while, and when he proposed I accepted on the condition that Sam must live with us and have the best of care. Joe promised, and as long as he kept his word I was prepared to put on the performance he wanted.
‘Even at the worst times I never quite gave up hope that one day I’d find my way back to my true path. You don’t look at me and see an academic, do you? But that’s how I’ve always felt inside, even when I was flaunting myself in the most vulgar fashion, plunging necklines, skirts slit up the thigh, perfectly timed wiggle. I practised that wiggle, you know, in front of the mirror, and, oh, boy, you should have seen me doing my stuff for the cameras!’
‘I have,’ Vittorio said, and could have bitten his tongue out straight afterwards.
‘You mean some of those programmes have been shown over here? By satellite?’
‘No, I got a video tape-when the sale had gone through…’ he said awkwardly.
‘What did you see?’ she asked in a voice that gave him no clue as to how she was taking this.
‘You mean-the one where I had to choose between Michelangelo and Maisie Mouse?’ she asked unsteadily.
‘That’s the one.’
It was too much for her. Angel gave a choke, then exploded into laughter, leaning back against the slope of the lawn, gasping helplessly. Vittorio watched her, wryly remembering his violent reaction at the time.
‘Come on, see the funny side,’ she chided him when she could speak.
‘I can. It’s just that at the time I-well, let’s just say it wasn’t one of my better moments.’
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You got a little figure of an angel and stuck pins into it.’ Seeing his embarrassment, she crowed, ‘You did! Admit it!’
‘I didn’t, I swear-’ Then he groaned. ‘But only because I couldn’t find an angel.’
She collapsed against him, chuckling helplessly, and he held her, finally able to laugh with her.
‘You are the most forgiving woman,’ he said unsteadily. ‘And you shouldn’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it. If you only knew…’
‘But I do know,’ she said, her arms about his neck. ‘You never bothered to hide it, even when you demanded the job. I’m not surprised you made a mess of it. It was a toss-up whether you loved this place more than you hated me.’
‘I never hated you,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes you did.’
‘No, that didn’t happen,’ Vittorio said, suddenly serious. ‘It didn’t happen because it couldn’t.’
He took her face between his hands and looked at her tenderly.
‘I could never hate you,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t you know that?’
‘I’m not sure that I do,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps you should explain. I could take a lot of convincing.’
Even now something held him back. There was almost desperation in his eyes as he searched her face, knowing that whatever he did at this moment would be dangerous.
But Angel had reached the end of her tether. If he didn’t kiss her now she knew she would do something stupid-and perhaps they would both be the better for it.
‘If you can’t explain,’ she said, driven beyond endurance, ‘then maybe I can.’
She made it all so simple, pulling his head down until his lips touched hers, moving her mouth softly against his, teasing him, but meaning it too, because the time for games was over.
‘Angel,’ he murmured. ‘Angel…Angel…’
Now he wasn’t merely invoking her name. In his arms, she felt like something both less and more than human-unearthly, magical, an angel, but with a little spice of the devil that was always going to be his undoing. Hadn’t he known that from the start?
As he felt her using all her feminine power to make him hers, Vittorio made a last effort to stay aloof from the siren’s song, to keep his soul his own as a man should. But he had no strength to fight her. Somewhere inside him, somewhere beyond words, deeper than conscious thought, he knew that victory would be defeat, and defeat would give him all he longed for.
Now she was stronger than him, every soft caress binding him like chains. She’d wanted him almost from the start, and only now did she understand how much.
But at the last moment he tensed and tried to draw back.
‘Wait-this isn’t right-I must tell you-’
‘It’s too late for that. There’s nothing to tell.’
‘I didn’t mean this-we need to talk first-I’d better go home,’ he said raggedly. ‘Right now. Angel, please, don’t make it hard for me to go.’
‘But I don’t want you to go,’ she whispered, her lips almost touching his face. ‘And you don’t want to-not really.’
‘If I don’t go now I won’t be able to. Have you any idea just how badly I long to stay?’
‘Why don’t you show me?’ she asked pointedly.
‘Not now. Don’t you understand that? After the things you’ve said about the men who pursue you in a herd-do you think I want to be one of that herd, tolerated but despised? You hate it, don’t you-all the clowns who chase you with their eyes, and fantasise about going to bed with you?’
‘Do you fantasise about going to bed with me?’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I do not.’
‘Oh,’ she breathed, deflated.
‘What I dream about is making love to you. Since the first day I’ve wanted to…’ a tremor went through him ‘… I’ve wanted things I knew I had no right to want. Why do you think I hated you? Because I
Vittorio’s voice was rising, and Angel raised her own to make herself heard. ‘Will you stop talking?’ she begged. ‘Don’t you know the time for that is way past?’
‘Please listen-’
They both froze, turning dismayed glances on the windows of Sam’s room, from where the cry had come. After a moment’s silence it came again, loud and indignant.
‘Do you mind keeping it down? People are trying to sleep here.’
‘That’s Sam,’ Angel said, aghast. ‘I forgot we’re right outside his room.’
‘Does he understand Italian?’
‘No-that is, I don’t think so,’ she said frantically. ‘But I wouldn’t put anything past him.’
There would never be a better chance to catch Vittorio with his defences weakened. Taking him by the hand, she drew him swiftly into the house by a side door, and locked it after them.
‘No more arguments,’ she said. ‘From now on, we do it my way.’
Angel prided herself on being a realist, and she knew that the problems were still there when she awoke in the morning, but it was hard to think about them after the night that had passed.
It had been as Vittorio promised, not a sex act but lovemaking, infused with tenderness. Everything about him had taken her by surprise, starting with the way he’d undressed her slowly, almost with reverence, lingering over
