Free A D'Angelo Like No Other by Carole Mortimer Page B

idea that it was his teasing that had caused that blush.
    Which was strange, because teasing, bantering word play wasn’t something he usually bothered with where a woman was concerned. He had always preferred a more straightforward approach. Knowing that beneath a woman’s desire there were always those pound signs.
    And Eva Foster was no different in that regard, he reminded himself impatiently, the only difference being that it was Rafe she wanted money from.
    His humour faded. ‘I have no intention of entertaining you,’ he bit out abruptly. ‘We both need feeding, I don’t cook, there’s no housekeeper here, so the two of us going out to lunch is the logical answer.’
    And Eva had a feeling that ‘logic’ was an important part of Michael’s personality. That he preferred cool, calm practicality to any form of spontaneity. Quite where their previous conversation fitted into that cool logic she had no idea.
    Although his mention of there being ‘no housekeeper here’ confirmed that, apart from the twins, the two of them really would be completely alone in his apartment...
    ‘The four of us,’ she corrected pointedly. ‘And I think you might find that eating out with two small babies isn’t as easy as it sounds,’ she added ruefully.
    That dark gaze flickered to the two currently quiet and contented babies Eva held in her arms. ‘They seem happy enough at the moment.’
    Eva smirked inwardly. He had no idea.
    * * *
    ‘I did try to warn you.’ Eva gave the stony-faced Michael an amused glance between sooty lashes as they left the elegant restaurant situated along the embankment of the Seine, where he had decided they would stop and eat lunch.
    It was a far less pristine Michael than the one who had left the apartment two hours ago, orange juice now visible down the front of his plain blue shirt, his casual black trousers damp from a glass of water Sam had knocked over, and slightly creased from where he’d had Sophie sitting on his knee for almost all of the meal.
    If Michael had thought that Sophie and Sam would sit happily in their pushchair playing with their toes and gurgling happily while the two of them ate their meal, then he had been in for a rude awakening. The twins had fretted to be picked up within minutes of the two of them sitting down at the table, Eva knowing from experience that it was better for all concerned—namely the other people trying to eat their meals in peace—if she just picked them up rather than trying to reason with them. As Michael had tried to do initially. And very quickly learnt that six-month-old babies hadn’t yet developed the capacity to be reasoned with.
    It had been a very trying couple of hours.
    Not least for Michael, who had obviously been totally at a loss as to how to amuse Sophie, let alone eat his food with one hand, which was all he’d had free when he was holding the baby in his other arm. It was a skill Eva had perfected in the past three months, always seeming to have one or other of the twins on her knee, sometimes both of them, whenever she tried to eat her meals.
    ‘If you insist on us continuing to stay at your apartment, then perhaps we should shop for food and eat there in future...?’ Eva suggested lightly as she wheeled the pushchair along the sun-dappled riverbank beside him, the majesty of the Eiffel Tower visible on the other side.
    It was a view Eva would have loved to stop and photograph, if not for the fact that she had the broodingly silent Michael D’Angelo walking along beside her!
    He shot her an irritated glance from beneath lowered dark brows. ‘I am not about to let a six-month-old baby—or even two of them!—dictate where and when I eat my meals.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘No!’
    Eva laughed softly at his determination. ‘Even if it’s easier?’
    His mouth thinned. ‘Easier doesn’t make it acceptable.’
    No, it didn’t, and Eva could imagine that this man, so controlled, so serious, rarely took the easy way out in