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He was possibly aged in his mid to late thirties, his short black hair was neatly trimmed about his ears and nape, and framed an olive-skinned and handsomely etched face that any of the male models Eva had photographed at the beginning of her career would surely die for. Dark brows arched above eyes of obsidian black, his nose a long straight slash between high cheekbones, with sculptured, slightly sensual lips above a firm and determined chin.
His wide shoulders, muscled chest, tapered waist, and lean hips above long legs also ensured that he wore the expensively tailored dark suit, white silk shirt and grey tie, rather than the clothes wearing him.
And leaving Eva in no doubt, along with the deference on the faces of the two silent gallery employees, and the fact that he had come from the office across the hallway, that this man had to be D’Angelo. The very man she had come here to see!
It was a realisation that ensured there was absolutely no deference in Eva’s own expression as she straightened before crossing the room to thrust Sophie at him. ‘Take her so I can get Sam,’ she instructed impatiently as he made no effort to lift the baby from her arms but instead looked at her incredulously, down the long length of his aristocratic nose, with those black-on-black eyes.
Michael found himself having to look a long way down. Goodness, this woman was small, only an inch or two over five feet tall compared to his own six feet three inches. She had a coltish slenderness that was saved from appearing boyish by full and thrusting breasts tipped by delicate nipples, breasts that were completely bare beneath the purple T-shirt, if Michael wasn’t mistaken. And he was pretty sure that he wasn’t.
Those full breasts, along with the confident glint in those violet-coloured eyes surrounded by thick sooty lashes, were enough to tell Michael that she was indeed a woman rather than a girl, and possibly aged in her early to mid-twenties.
She was also, he acknowledged grudgingly, extremely beautiful, her face dominated by those incredible violet-coloured eyes, a short pert nose, and full and sensuous lips, while her skin was as pale and delicate as the finest porcelain. Dark shadows beneath the violet eyes gave her an appearance of fragility.
A fragility that was somewhat nullified by the stubborn set of the woman’s full lips above an equally determined and thrusting chin.
Michael dragged his gaze away from that arrestingly beautiful face to instead stare down in horror at the pink-dress-clad baby this young woman held out in front of him; horror, because he had absolutely no experience with holding young babies. How could he have, when he had never been this close to a small baby since being one himself?
He recoiled back from the now-drooling infant. ‘I don’t think—’
‘I’ve found that it’s best not to think too much around Sophie and Sam, especially now they’re teething,’ he was assured dryly. ‘You might want to put this on your shoulder to protect your jacket.’
The woman handed him a square of white linen as she dumped the baby unceremoniously into his arms before turning to stride back across the office, giving Michael a perfect view of her curvaceous denim-covered bottom as she bent down to unclip the strap that secured the second, still-whimpering baby into the pushchair.
Michael held the first baby—Sophie?—at arm’s length, totally at a loss as to what to do with her, and more than a little disconcerted to find himself the focus of eyes the same beautiful deep violet colour as her mother’s. A steady and intense focus that seemed far too knowing, almost mocking it seemed to him, for a baby of surely only a few months old.
Eva lifted Sam up out of the pushchair as she straightened, more than a little annoyed that the two gabbling Archangel employees had woken the babies up at all; it had taken the whole of the walk from the hotel to the gallery to lull them into falling asleep in the first place, after a disjointed night of one or other of the twins—and consequently Eva—being woken up with teething pains.
As a result both Eva and the babies were feeling a little disgruntled this morning. Which didn’t prevent her from almost laughing out loud as she turned to find D’Angelo was still holding Sophie with both arms straight out in front of him, a look of absolute horror on his face, as if the baby were a time bomb about to go off!
But Eva only almost laughed...
Because there had been very little for her to laugh about these past few nightmarish months.
Those memories sobered Eva instantly. ‘Sophie doesn’t bite,’ she snapped impatiently as she cuddled a denim-and-T-shirt-clad Sam in her arms. ‘Well...not much,’ she amended ruefully. ‘Luckily they both only have four teeth at the moment...’
Michael wasn’t known for his patience at the best of times—and right now, in the midst of this chaos, was far from the best of times. ‘I’m more interested in knowing what they, and you, are doing in the private area of Archangel, than in hearing how many teeth your children have!’
The woman’s pointed chin rose as she looked at him with hard and challenging violet eyes. ‘Do you really want me to discuss that in front of your employees, Mr D’Angelo? I take it that you are Mr D’Angelo?’ She quirked a derisive brow.
‘I am, yes.’ Michael scowled darkly. ‘Discuss what in front of my employees?’ he prompted cautiously.
Her mouth thinned. ‘The reason I’m in the private area of Archangel.’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘As I have absolutely no idea what your reasons might be I can’t answer that question.’
‘No?’ she scorned.
‘No,’ Michael bit out harshly. ‘Perhaps you would care to come through to my office...?’
Pierre, a man several years his junior, voiced his concern by launching into all the reasons—in French, of course!—as to why he felt it inadvisable for Michael to be alone with this woman, with several less than polite references made as to whether or not she was quite sane, along with the suggestion that they call security and have her ejected from the building.
‘I understood all that,’ their visitor answered in fluent French as she turned her glittering violet and challenging gaze on the now less than comfortable Pierre. ‘And you can call security if you want, but, I assure you, I’m quite sane,’ she mocked Michael.
‘I never doubted it for a moment!’ Michael drawled, equally mockingly. ‘It’s fine, Pierre,’ he assured in English. ‘If you would care to come through to my office...?’ he prompted the woman again, before stepping out of the doorway to reveal the room behind him, still having no idea what to do with the baby in his arms. Especially as the baby—Sophie—was now smiling up at him beguilingly as she proudly displayed those four tiny white teeth.
‘She likes you,’ the baby’s mother announced disgustedly as she continued to carry Sam at the same time as she manoeuvred the pushchair past Michael and into his office.
He hastily placed the piece of white linen on his shoulder and hefted the baby into one arm before he was able to close the office door behind him on the wide-eyed and slightly worried stares of Marie and Pierre.
‘Wow, this is some view...’
Michael turned to see the violet-eyed woman gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling-windows at the view up the length of the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe; that view, and the prestigious address, were the main reasons for choosing this stunning location for the Paris gallery. ‘We like it,’ he drawled with hard dismissal. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind explaining yourself...?’ he added pointedly. ‘Beginning with who you are?’ Michael had wondered briefly if she wasn’t the persistent Monique from Rafe’s past, but the English accent seemed to say not.
Eva turned, still holding a now-quiet Sam in her arms. ‘My name is Eva Foster.’
‘And?’ D’Angelo prompted when she added nothing else to that statement, those obsidian-black eyes blank of emotion.
Eva eyed him impatiently. ‘And you obviously have absolutely no idea who I am,’ she realised with horror.
He arched dark brows. ‘Should I have?’
Should he have? Of course he should, the arrogant, irresponsible jerk— ‘Perhaps the name Rachel Foster would be more helpful in jogging your memory?’ she prompted sweetly.
He frowned darkly even as he gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I’m sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what—or who—you’re talking about...’
A red tide seemed to pass in front of Eva’s eyes. All these months of heartache, chaos, heartache, loss, and, yes, just plain heartache, and this man didn’t even remember Rachel’s name, let alone Rachel herself—!
‘What sort of man are you? Don’t bother to answer that,’ Eva added furiously as she began to pace the office. ‘Obviously so many women pass in and out of your privileged life, and your no doubt silk-sheeted bed, that you forget about them as soon as the next one takes up occupancy—’
‘Stop right there,’ D’Angelo advised harshly. ‘No, I didn’t mean you, little one,’ he added softly as Sophie gave a protesting whimper at the tone of his voice. His eyes were as black and piercing as jet as he turned back to Eva. ‘Are you implying that you believe I’ve been...involved with this Rachel Foster?’
Eva’s eyes widened angrily, her cheeks warming with temper. ‘This Rachel Foster happens to be my sister, and, yes, you’ve been “involved” with her. In fact, you’re holding part of the evidence of that involvement in your arms right now!’
Michael instantly stared down at the baby he held. Not a newborn, certainly, probably a few months old, possibly five or six, and very cute, as babies went, with her mop of black hair, those violet-coloured eyes, and her little face screwed up in concentration as she played with one of the buttons on the jacket of his several-thousand-pound suit.
If this woman, this Eva Foster, was trying to say that he was somehow responsible?
Shades of yesterday...
‘I’ve never met your sister,’ Michael stated firmly. ‘Let alone—I’ve never met her,’ he repeated coldly. ‘So whatever scam the two of you are trying to pull here I would advise that you forget it—’ He broke off abruptly as one of Eva Foster’s hands made loud and painful contact with one of his cheeks, causing the baby in his arms to let out another deafening wail. ‘That was uncalled for,’ he bit out between gritted teeth, his jaw clenched as he jiggled the baby up and down in his arms in an effort to silence her screams.
‘It was very called for,’ Eva Foster insisted heatedly, her face having become even paler as she moved forward to soothingly stroke the back of the baby in Michael’s arms. ‘How dare you stand there and deny even knowing my sister, accuse the two of us of trying to pull a scam on you, at the same time as you’re holding your own daughter in your arms?’ Her eyes flashed deeply violet in contrast to the emotional shaking of her voice.
‘I am not—’ Michael broke off to draw in a deep, controlling breath, his cheek still stinging from that slap. ‘Sophie is not my daughter.’
‘I assure you she is,’ she snapped.
‘Do you think we could both just take a couple of deep breaths, maybe step back a little, and try to calm this situation down? It’s distressing the babies,’ Michael added firmly as Eva Foster opened her mouth with the obvious intention of continuing to argue with him.
It was unusual for anyone to argue with him, period, Michael being accustomed to issuing orders and having them obeyed rather than have people dispute them. Nor did he appreciate the added complication of this woman—a feisty young woman he acknowledged as being irritatingly beautiful—continuing to accuse him of fathering her sister’s babies.
It was an accusation Michael didn’t appreciate. He’d learnt his lesson many years ago when it came to the machinations of women. And he had Emma Lowther to thank that, for teaching him to never, ever trust a woman, when it came to contraception or anything else.
How many years ago was it since Emma had tried to blackmail him into marriage by claiming she was pregnant? Fourteen. And Michael still remembered every moment of it as if it were yesterday.
Not that he had ever thought of shirking his responsibility. Oh, no, Michael had been stupid enough to think he was actually in love with Emma, had even been pleased about the baby, and the two of them had been making wedding plans for weeks when he introduced Emma to an acquaintance at a party, and she had decided within days of that introduction that Daniel, his family richer even than Michael’s, would be a far better choice as a husband. Which was when she had told Michael there was no baby, that she had been mistaken. Three months later she had tried to use the same trick on Daniel.
The scene that had followed, once Emma had learnt that Michael had warned Daniel of her machinations, that there was no baby this time either, had not been pleasant!
Emma’s pregnancy had been a sham, a trick to make Michael marry her, and it had been enough of a warning for him never again to trust any woman to take care of contraception...
Which was why he could now confidently deny Eva Foster’s claim in regard to her sister’s babies.
‘Twins,’ she now corrected softly. ‘The babies are twins.’
They certainly looked of a similar age and colouring: both had silky heads of ebony dark hair and the same amazing violet-coloured eyes as their aunt. Their features weren’t completely formed as yet, but there were certainly enough similarities for Michael to accept Eva Foster’s claim that they were twins.
But whether they were twins or otherwise, they were not—most definitely not!—Michael’s children.
‘How old are they?’ he bit out tightly.
‘Trying to jog your memory?’ she scorned.
‘How old?’ Michael repeated through those gritted teeth.
She shrugged. ‘Six months.’
And if Rachel Foster had gone full term with her babies that would mean nine months to be added onto the six months, making it fifteen months ago he was supposed to have—
Damn it, why was Michael even bothering to do the maths? No matter what this woman might claim to the contrary, he had not impregnated any woman fifteen months ago or at any other time!
‘And you believe they’re mine because...?’ He kept his voice soft and even as Sophie’s lids began to flicker and her head dropped down sleepily onto his shoulder, the infant obviously tired out by her previous screeching.
That pointed chin rose another challenging notch. ‘Because Rachel told me they were.’
Michael nodded. ‘In that case, would you care to explain why your sister hasn’t come here and confronted me with this information herself?’
‘Because— Careful!’ Eva warned as she realised Sophie had fallen into the completely boneless sleep only babies seemed able to do, and was almost slipping off one of those broad shoulders as a result.
‘How did you do that?’ she breathed ruefully as she looked at the sleeping Sophie.
Usually the twins only fell asleep after she had walked them in their pushchair or bounced them up and down for hours; Eva couldn’t remember the last time she’d had even one uninterrupted night’s sleep. And those lazy Sunday mornings of dozing in bed until lunchtime, which she had once taken so much for granted, now seemed like a self-indulgent dream, a mirage, and one Eva was sure she was destined never to know again.
‘Do what?’ D’Angelo rasped softly.
‘Never mind,’ Eva muttered irritably. ‘Just put Sophie in the left side of the pushchair. She doesn’t like sitting on the right side,’ she supplied wearily as he paused to raise dark, questioning brows.
‘She’s asleep, so what does it matter?’
‘She knows when she wakes up,’ Eva dismissed impatiently.
‘Right,’ Michael drawled dryly, willing to take this woman’s word for it that a six-month-old baby was aware of which side of a pushchair she was sitting in.
He looked down at the baby after he had somehow managed to ease her down into the pushchair without waking her. Sophie was like a dark-haired angel, ebony lashes fanning across her flushed cheeks, her mouth a little pouting rosebud.
He straightened abruptly as he realised what he was doing. ‘What about that one?’ He indicated the baby in Eva Foster’s arms.
‘His name’s Sam,’ she supplied somewhat tartly. ‘And he’s just fine where he is.’ She looked down indulgently at the baby now snuggled into her throat. ‘Sam is more placid than Sophie,’ she explained waspishly as she obviously saw Michael’s mocking expression. ‘What did you say?’ she prompted softly as he muttered under his breath.
‘I said that’s probably because he’s a man,’ Michael repeated unabashedly.
Eva Foster gave a scathing snort. ‘It’s been my experience that men tend to be lazy, not placid!’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Michael’s brow lowered.
‘I’m sure you heard me the first time,’ she came back with feigned sweetness.
He had, and he hadn’t liked it either; he and his two brothers had worked damned hard the past ten years to develop the one gallery they had then owned into three, spread across London, New York and Paris, and to build them up to become some of the most prestigious private galleries and auction houses in the world. And the three brothers were now reaping some of the benefits of that hard work, all of them extremely wealthy and able to live a lifestyle befitting that wealth, then it certainly wasn’t because it had just been handed to them on a silver platter.
The scornful expression on Eva Foster’s delicately lovely face showed she obviously thought otherwise!
As she was also under some strange delusion that Michael was the father of her niece and nephew...
It was time—past time!—that he took control of this situation. ‘In your opinion.’ He nodded tersely as he moved to sit behind his black marble desk. ‘You were about to tell me why you’re here instead of your sister...?’
Eva was well aware of the fact that D’Angelo had deliberately chosen to resume his seat behind his desk, as a way of putting some distance between the two of them at the same time as it put their conversation onto a businesslike footing. Although how anyone could think, or talk, of babies in a ‘businesslike’ way was beyond her!
D’Angelo wasn’t at all what she had been expecting of the man who had first charmed and then impregnated her younger sister. Rachel had been fun-loving, and, yes, slightly irresponsible, having decided to travel around the world for a year once she had finished university, only to come back to London ten months later, alone and pregnant. With this man’s baby—which had turned out to be babies, plural.
The man seated behind the desk wasn’t what Eva had imagined when her sister had talked so enthusiastically of her lover’s charm and good looks, and the fun they’d had together in Paris. Oh, this man was certainly handsome enough, dark and brooding—dangerously so, she would hazard a guess, and causing Eva to give an inner wince as she looked at the mark her hand had left on one of those perfectly chiselled cheeks. No doubt that dangerous aura this man exuded was counteracted by the tight control he also showed, otherwise she might have found herself with a similar imprint on her own cheek!
His was such an austere handsomeness: icy black eyes, harshly etched features, his manner rigidly controlled, and there was a cool aloofness to him that it was difficult for Eva to imagine ever melting, even—especially!—when he made love with a woman.
She certainly couldn’t imagine him and the slightly irresponsible Rachel as ever having gone out together, let alone—
Maybe it would be better, for all concerned, if Eva’s thoughts didn’t dwell on the physical side of Rachel’s relationship with this man. A physical relationship he continued to deny!
Her mouth thinned as she answered him. ‘I’m here instead of Rachel because my sister is dead.’
He gave a visible start. ‘What...?’
If Eva had thought to make him feel guilty, to get some reaction other than shock with the starkness of her statement, then she was disappointed; he looked suitably shocked, but in a distant way, rather than as a man hearing of the death of an ex-lover.
Eva drew in a sharp, shaky breath as she attempted to keep her own emotions under control. It was some weeks since she had needed to explain to anyone that her sister had died, and to do so now, to the man who had once been Rachel’s lover—even if he denied all knowledge of it—was particularly hard.
Just as Eva still found it impossible to believe, to accept, that her sister Rachel, only twenty-two, and supposedly with all of her life still ahead of her, had died, quite peaceably in the end, just three short months ago.
And Eva had been trying to cope ever since with her own grief as well as the care of the twins. It was a battle she had finally had to accept she was losing, physically as well as financially. First Rachel had been so ill, and then she had died, and it had been—and still was—almost impossible for Eva to work when she had cared for Rachel and then had the full-time day-to-day care—and the sleepless nights—of the twins to cope with. Her savings had now dwindled almost to nothing, certainly quicker than she was able to replenish them with the few photographic assignments she had been free to accept these past six months. Assignments when she had been able to take the twins with her, which was becoming increasingly difficult the bigger and more vocal they got.
