Free A Secret Until Now by Kim Lawrence Page A

effort and she avoided his eyes. ‘That doesn’t stop most people offering advice.’
    ‘Is her father involved?’
    Angel couldn’t look at him. Lucky thing she was sitting down because her knees were shaking. ‘No.’
    ‘I imagine it can’t be easy...?’
    He imagined right, but Angel would not have it any other way. The sleepless nights were more than compensated for in a million other ways. ‘I make it work.’
    ‘I’m sure you do.’
    Again, she couldn’t take his comment at face value. ‘And no, I’m not naive enough to think a single working parent can have it all, but I don’t want it all.’
    From this defiant statement he read that she wanted it but couldn’t have it. The idea that the father was unavailable, most likely married, seemed a real contender. Funny how some women were drawn to unavailable men.... Was she one of them?
    ‘We all want some things more than others.’ And at that moment all he wanted, wanted so much he could taste it, was this provoking, dark-haired, green-eyed witch. His innate ability to distance himself from a situation had failed him completely—he wanted her under him, he wanted to be inside her and he knew he wasn’t going to have a moment’s peace until he had achieved this desire.
    The expression in his eyes stopped her asking what it was he wanted more than other things. The expression in his blue eyes was explicit enough to cause a head-on collision between a fist of some unidentifiable emotion and her solar plexus.
    She got to her feet. ‘Well, thanks for the coffee and the little chat but I’m fine now.’
    ‘I’ll walk you back to your bungalow.’
    A cold fist of fear tightened in her belly as Angel realised that she wanted to say yes. When she recognised how much she wanted to say yes the fist tightened even more.
    She tossed back her hair and made her voice cold. ‘That will be quite unnecessary and I’m not going back to my bungalow. I’m going back to the party.’ A room full of people no longer seemed a bad thing; she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.
    ‘If it makes you feel any better, Emma, my wife, died several weeks before we slept together.’
    The words stopped her in her tracks. She shook her head. Was she being slow...? ‘You expect that to make me feel better?’
    He had, but it was fairly obvious he had been wrong. ‘I thought you had a right to know.’ The comment had not sounded so lame or pompous in his head.
    ‘But not before I spent six years worrying that I’d turned into my mother. Why on earth did you say you were married?’
    ‘I didn’t say, you assumed.’
    ‘And you didn’t put me right. Why... Oh, you... Oh...’ Comprehension flickered into her eyes. ‘It was the quickest way to get rid of me...?’
    ‘I have a distaste of scenes.’
    She sucked in a deep breath through flared nostrils. Hearing the beat of helicopter blades somewhere in the distance she could only hope that they were here to whisk him away. ‘I’m going back into the party—your party, so I can’t stop you coming too, but if you pester me so help me I’ll report you to the hotel management for harassment and I don’t care who it upsets!’
    Not him, if his expression was any indicator. ‘I can speak for the management when I say that we take all complaints very seriously.’
    ‘We?’ She shook her head. ‘This hotel is part of the Theakis group.’ Her frown deepened as his firm lips twitched. ‘What is so funny? Don’t you believe I would?’
    ‘Oh, I believe you would follow through with any rash threat you make. But before you do I should explain that my grandfather was Spyros Theakis, Angelina. I am the Theakis group and speaking in that role I can assure you we take all such complaints very seriously.’
    The realisation hit Angel like a stone. Having deflated her, he strode off in the opposite direction without another word or backwards glance.

CHAPTER FOUR
    A NGEL STAYED AT the party for another hour but by the